


Stargazer

by Lomonaaeren



Series: From Samhain to the Solstice [23]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Drama, Hufflepuff Harry Potter, M/M, Mentor Severus Snape, Mentor/Protégé, Snarry begins when Harry is 17
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-08
Updated: 2018-12-15
Packaged: 2019-09-14 01:06:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Underage
Chapters: 8
Words: 34,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16903200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lomonaaeren/pseuds/Lomonaaeren
Summary: There is no Boy-Who-Lived; Albus Dumbledore defeated Voldemort and destroyed his Horcruxes. Harry grows up as an ordinary boy—averyordinary boy, with barely more magic than a Squib. He sets out to prove himself, but in private, because he doesn’t want to see the disappointment in everyone’s eyes if he fails. And that leads him to a very strange relationship, mediated by stubbornness on both sides, with Severus Snape.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is another of my “From Samhain to the Solstice” fics, and will be split into seven parts. The underage relationship starts when Harry is 17.

****_The Squib Who Wasn’t_

Harry knows it isn’t anyone’s fault. His parents can’t help being powerful wizards, and neither can his younger brothers Sol and Romulus and his younger sister Alicia. That’s the way things are.

But they look at him, sometimes, as if it’s his fault. As if having barely enough magic to go to Hogwarts means they barely _can_ look at him.

Father is always making up games that the others can participate in just fine, but Harry can’t, because it means they have to harness the magic that burns through their brown and hazel and almost golden eyes. And Mother will talk proudly about how they’ll grow up to become fine wizards and a witch someday, but her voice falters when her eyes land on Harry. And Sirius just scratches his head and says, “Huh,” at Harry before he goes to play with Sol, who’s sort of named after him anyway.

Remus is better, because he knows what it’s like to be an outcast, but even he’s strong enough that he can Transfigure clothes for himself or conjure water for a quick drink if he’s thirsty. Harry will probably never be that strong. And Peter actively avoids Harry. It’s like Harry reminds him of something he’s done wrong.

Mother and Father talk to him sometimes, anxiously, always wanting to make sure that he doesn’t blame his siblings.

“You know that they don’t hate you,” Mother says, over and over, stroking Harry’s hair and glancing out towards the garden where his siblings are playing. Or up at the brooms, or around at the fireplace, or at the circle of them gathered around toys that will never respond to Harry. “They don’t dislike you for being a Squib.”

Harry only nods, his head lowered and drooping. Mother sounds so disappointed. She doesn’t want him to feel jealousy, or dislike, or self-pity, or fear of being left out, or—

Or anything, really.

Father is the same way. He gives Harry nervous looks as if being a Squib, or almost a Squib, is catching, and clears his throat a lot when he’s with Harry, and sometimes tells him stories of other people without much magic who became powerful Ministers.

“ _Average_ wizards don’t have much magic,” he tells Harry over and over again. “There are loads of them who can’t perform the Shield Charm, or the Disillusionment Charm, or Apparition. You’re going to Hogwarts, Harry. The test the Healers did confirmed that. You just—”

 _Can’t do lots of other things_ floats unspoken on the air. Harry nods solemnly, and digs his toe into the earth, and watches his father rush back to the company of his siblings, normal Potter children who can do normal things. There’s a difference between “average” and “normal,” at least for his family.

And Harry isn’t content to be normal. Maybe if he’d been born with the magic that Romulus or Sol or Alicia have, he would be. But he wants to be more than that. And he knows how to do it.

He’ll just have to work _really_ hard.

*

Severus grimaces through the pounding pain and sits stiffly at the head table, gaze fastened on the first-years jostling and whispering among themselves as they wait to be Sorted. The headache remedy he has been experimenting with lately didn’t work out as he hoped. Not all experimental potions can, but that does nothing for his foul mood.

Or the pain that he knows will have to go away on its own. No antidote will be effective for it.

“Awaiting the arrival of your best friend’s child?” Albus asks him, and pops a lemon drop into his mouth, smiling.

Sneering—the man _always_ eats those bloody sweets, and offers them to Severus on top of that—he only replies, “Not my best friend anymore. Not since she married James Potter.” The memory of Lily’s choice still stings. Severus understands why she did it. Severus himself was too guarded, in the end, for even their friendship to survive. He drove Lily away with his constant need for reassurance, followed by coldness and his disappearance into the dungeons to brew.

His flirtation with the Death Eaters probably didn’t help, either. And although he doesn’t bear the Dark Mark on his arm as so many of the convicted do, it was only a miracle of self-control that allowed him to escape. As it is, he was close enough to many of the Dark Lord’s arrested followers, including Lucius Malfoy, that few people would hire him when his trial was done. Severus has to be grateful that he found a position at Hogwarts.

 _Has_ to be grateful. It does not mean that he wants to be.

“Well, there’s always the chance to turn over a new leaf, my boy!”

Severus doesn’t react to the teasing, and instead watches the Sorting. The first few children go quickly, but there’s a long line still waiting. Severus grimaces. It is wrong to wish that the war had shattered a few more families before Albus stopped it, but his Occlumency is strong enough to prevent Albus from reading the desire out of his mind.

And no one else can reach it.

Finally, the line narrows to the point that Severus can readily make out the boy with messy dark hair and the green eyes that still make his heart twist, even now. He sits still, outwardly bored, as the boy walks over and picks up the Hat.

Some moments pass, and Severus tilts his head. He remembers hearing that the boy barely had enough magic to make it to Hogwarts. That might mean—

“HUFFLEPUFF!”

There’s the usual clapping and cheering that Pomona’s badgers do for every student Sorted into their House. A Hufflepuff has no measure of relative value, Severus thinks clinically, while part of him still ticks with shock. Of course they would be as happy to have a near-Squib as they would be to have a child of a prominent family line or strong intelligence.

Potter walks over and sits next to Cedric Diggory, who claps him on the shoulder and starts introducing him to the others. Severus watches for a few minutes, until the next Slytherin Sorting. Potter keeps his eyes down and answers quietly enough that it’s hard to make out the words. Not at all the son of his arrogant father that Severus thought he would be.

But, of course, there are many kinds of arrogance. Potter probably thinks himself too good for his House. Thinks he should have been a _Gryffindor_.

 _I look forward to teaching the boy his place,_ Severus thought, and turns to nod for the Selwyn girl entering Slytherin.

_Hard Work_

Harry’s House placement isn’t a surprise to him. For one thing, he’s not good enough to be a Gryffindor. Mother and Father have made that clear. Or at least that they don’t _think_ of him as a Gryffindor. And he would never want to be a Slytherin. He’s not cunning. He comes up with simple plans. Not clever enough for Ravenclaw, either.

The Hat told him, “ _You’re dogged. You can do anything you want with this much work ethic. But your ambition is so strong that I did consider putting you in Slytherin. Let me take another look._ ”

Harry sat there and patiently replayed memories of times people ignored him. For now, he needed people to keep ignoring him. He’d change that soon enough, but there was no point in changing it right away. He wasn’t good enough at magic to carry off the dramatic reveal of his presence right now. Let him be ignored. He would just—

“ _You’ll improve because you’ll work at it. And then dazzle them all with the magic that you can show them_?”

 _That’s right,_ Harry told the Hat, and the Hat put him in his House.

The one thing Harry’s worried about, that his fellow Hufflepuffs won’t ignore him enough to let him slip away and practice magic in private, turns out to be baseless. He’s not powerful enough or clever enough or friendly enough to attract any extraordinary interest. And when he listens to others, he doesn’t make the right exclamations that would convince them he wants to adore them. People talk about themselves and sometimes use him as a convenient audience. Then they drift away.

Just like they’ve always done.

Just like he’s going to make them _stop_ doing, in a few years. But only then.

*

The first Potions class is a disaster. Then again, Harry expected it to be.

Professor Snape prowls around hissing dark promises of what is going to happen to them if they dare take their wands out in his class. Harry keeps his wand firmly in his sleeve, but it doesn’t keep the professor from whipping towards him and barking out a question about asphodel and wormwood.

Harry thinks he knows the answer to this one. He read all his books before he started Hogwarts. He knows that he’s going to have to read books to get good at magic, because _he_ has to understand the theory before he can start practicing spells. Other people, who aren’t almost Squibs, don’t have to, but he does.

But he also doesn’t see the point in giving the right answer. He knows all about Professor Severus Snape and his hatred of Potters, and his broken friendship with Mother. Harry won’t impress him no matter how he tries.

And he only has time for working towards that moment when he can impress them.

“Some sort of sleeping potion?” he asks, and makes sure his voice is wavery and squeaky, like the voice of a typical Hufflepuff. Apparently, the professor didn’t expect even that much, because he actually checks his step and stares at Harry before he sneers.

“And where would you find a bezoar?”

This one, he _definitely_ knows. But Harry looks down at his desk and stammers, “I-in someone’s p-potions kit?”

“I do not tolerate _cheek_ , Potter. Last question. What is the difference between monkshood and wolfsbane?”

 _They’re the same plant._ Harry bites his lip and blanks his face, and blushes when Snape glares at him harder. “I d-don’t know, sir!”

Again Snape hesitates as if he doesn’t understand, which is weirder than the rest. Why would he _expect_ anything but arrogance from one of James Potter’s children? But then he turns away and begins to spit the answers.

Harry was right about the asphodel and wormwood potion being the Draught of Living Death, and where the bezoar would come from. But he scrambles for his quill and churns down the answers, and doesn’t try very hard with the potion that follows. Potions are something even near-Squibs can do well. And Mother makes them for her job sometimes, but Father wouldn’t be impressed by him doing well in Snape’s class.

Harry is going to do the really _impressive_ magic that they don’t think he can do. That’s the whole point.

*

_The boy lied about not knowing what monkshood and wolfsbane are._

Severus frowns down at the stack of summer essays he’s marking. There’s a glass of softly gleaming Lightning Whisky within reach and an even softer fire flickering in front of him and student egos waiting to be destroyed, but he’s having a hard time making himself settle to the work.

Being a Legilimens means he can sense lies from anyone except another Legilimens. And the Potter boy _lied_.

He had no reason to do so. If anything, Severus would expect the spawn of James Potter to be smirking and resting on his laurels, expecting to impress his greasy Potions teacher with a few simple answers.

But Potter isn’t like that. Severus still thinks he’s arrogant, expecting to get away with lying to a Legilimens, but he doesn’t seem to attract attention. It’s almost uncanny, the way the boy manages to fade out in Potions class, not even getting other helpful Hufflepuffs to aid him. He was working alone before Severus thought to assign him to do so.

He recalls a stray remark made by Minerva the other day. She was surprised the first night that the boy wasn’t a Gryffindor, but at the head table, she said, “I shouldn’t have been. The House wouldn’t be a good fit for him. He’s very humble.”

 _Could it be that, because he’s been told all his life that he doesn’t have much magic—_?

But Severus dismisses the notion with a snarl. No. He was right that it was simply a _different_ kind of arrogance. Potter still expects to get away with the lying. Severus is going to teach him differently.

Only when he makes that resolution can he finally go back to the destruction of other egos.

_Empty Classrooms_

Harry finds he doesn’t care much for detention. Granted, he’s only earning them from Professor Snape and that’s really because his last name is Potter more than anything else, but they still cut into the private time that he wants to spend reading books and practicing spells.

There’s one good thing, though. Professor Snape favors manual labor over the lines or forced revision that some professors do. Harry’s mind can go elsewhere while his hands labor with sponges and water and soap.

Charms theory is the thing he wants to practice in his head right now. He’s aiming for complete mastery of the Shield Charm and Disillusionment Charm by the end of the term. He doubts he’ll impress his parents just with those, but it’s a good start.

“Dreaming again, Potter?”

Harry doesn’t jump, even though the voice sounded from right behind him. One of the things the rigorous training has done for him is give him more control of his body, so involuntary flinches and the like are going down. He inclines his head and murmurs, “I’m almost done, Professor Snape.”

“I want to know what you were thinking about,” the professor says, and prowls in front of him.

Harry doesn’t look him directly in the eye, given his Legilimency, but he does look at Snape’s nose. It’s a pretty easy target. “I was thinking about Charms, Professor.”

There’s a silence while Snape struggles to find something worthy of another detention in his words. Harry only _stands_ still; he keeps his hands moving, attacking the stubborn stain along the side of the cauldron no matter how much it wants to stay.

“Do not think about them in my classroom!” Snape finally snaps back, and flounces off.

Harry doesn’t even point out that they’re in his office and not his classroom. That’s how noble he can be. He goes back to considering ways that he can improve his wand movements and the pronunciation of his incantations. He supposes he could pay attention to that Granger girl in Ravenclaw for tips, but she always follows up the tips with half an hour of explanation about things Harry already knows.

He has better uses for his time.

*

Harry stands still and studies himself in the big mirror that he found in an empty classroom and dragged here, to his practice space, another empty classroom. At first, the mirror kept trying to show him images of himself standing with Mother and Father while his siblings stared at him in awe. But Harry threatened to break it, and it proved it’s a _smart_ enchanted mirror. Now it just reflects him and the classroom.

And it won’t reflect him in a moment, if all goes well.

Harry draws in a deep breath the way all those books say to, calming and centering himself. Then he taps his wand on his head and speaks the incantation for the Disillusionment Charm, smartly.

Nothing happens.

Harry blinks for a second. Then he breathes out and nods. All right. He hasn’t worked hard enough yet. Or he hasn’t flexed the little magic he does have, which he can sometimes feel burning in his chest, hard enough. He’ll keep working at it. This is a muscle. He’ll turn it and exercise it and _make_ it work.

Of course he feels disappointed as he wheels around to face the mirror again. But he doesn’t feel like giving up.

He never will.

*

Severus stares at the letter on his desk. Honestly, he expected one months ago, when he first started assigning Potter all those detentions. Surely the boy would have written to his parents, complaining, and James bloody Potter would have sent a Howler to scream at Severus and tell him that he shouldn’t crush a poor Squib’s dreams.

But this is the first that he’s received. And it’s an ordinary note, from Lily. He opened it the minute he got it. He’s not staring at it because of feelings about their old friendship. He’s staring at it because it’s the most puzzling thing he’s ever got from her.

_Dear Severus,_

_I hate writing to you like this, because it feels like I’m taking advantage of the friendship we used to have. But I don’t feel like I have a choice. Harry hasn’t written us a line since he got to Hogwarts. We were hoping you had some idea how he was doing in his classes. I mean, at least his Potions classes. We know he’s not in Slytherin, but we only know that because Sirius stopped by to chat with Dumbledore and happened to see Harry go by with Hufflepuff colors on his robes._

_We don’t know why he doesn’t write to us. But we’re both afraid that maybe he finds the schoolwork too challenging and he thinks that we’ll pull him out of the school. It’s not true! We want him to stay at Hogwarts as long as he possibly can._

_I know you don’t like either me or James most of the time, but we thought—I thought that Harry might bond with you because Potions are the one branch of magic people who are almost Squibs can do easily. Can you please just write to me and tell me how he is? Even a few words would mean a lot._

_Thank you,_  
_Lily._

Severus stares at the letter, and taps his fingers on the table. He goes over to fetch a glass of his favorite whisky, and still things are no clearer.

Potter is not one to tell tales, it seems. Not about his detentions, not about the cutting remarks Severus addresses to him in class, not about the way that Severus has heard he struggles in most of his classes with anything that’s not pure theory. Not about _anything_.

Severus almost has to wonder if it’s the same kind of not-tale-telling that haunted his own childhood.

But then he shakes himself sharply. He knows Lily—still knows her, even with all the years of estrangement that lie between them. He knows that she would never abuse her child.

There are other kinds of twists that sink into a young child’s soul and warp that soul around themselves, though. What if it wasn’t abuse, but only being told over and over that he was nearly a Squib, and should feel grateful to go to Hogwarts? Severus knows the other Potter children are powerful witches and wizards. Lupin and Black make sure to speak that much in loud voices whenever they visit Hogwarts and see Severus around a corner.

Potter might well be overcompensating. Although how he can when he barely passes in Potions and struggles in other classes, Severus doesn’t know. Perhaps simply by adopting the stoicism that someone probably told him other Squibs have?

Severus shakes his head. He will write back to Lily and confirm the boy is in Hufflepuff. He will say he’s not doing well in Potions. He will tell her about the detentions from Severus that the boy gathers like a Potions master gathering persimmons on the night of the full moon.

But he will tell her no more than that. Whatever lies in Potter’s soul, he deserves to work it out himself.

_The Magic of Work_

The incantation rings out in the classroom. Harry knows his wand movements are perfect. He watches the mirror with the intent, unwavering concentration that he’s developed, the kind that can never be disappointed even as he knows—

And then he disappears.

Harry stands there gaping, and then drops his wand. It rolls away from him over the ground, suddenly visible, but the rest of him doesn’t appear. He’s done it. He’s mastered the Disillusionment Charm.

He dances up and down in front of the mirror, and the shimmer that masks his shape bobs with him. Harry grins and waves his arm. He can just make out the shape of arm-waving within the space that defines the Disillusionment Charm.

He seizes his wand from the floor and casts another spell. This time, it flows easily through his wand, and the small coil of magic in the center of his chest seems to warm and stretch.

He managed it. He mastered it in time for Christmas.

He’s still working on the Shield Charm. But he can go home and play with his siblings and listen to their stories of magic and be content in the knowledge that, one day, he’ll have a grander story than any of theirs to tell them.

*

“You’re doing much better in Transfiguration than you were, Mr. Potter.”

“Thank you, Professor McGonagall.”

Severus pauses before he goes around the corner, even though he honestly doesn’t know why. From the sound of it, Minerva and Potter are talking about his class performance—no secret, given how much Minerva likes to brag or groan about her students at the breakfast table, and the lunch table, and the dinner table. But there’s a new tone in Potter’s voice when he responds, perhaps.

“Did you find a book that helped you, Mr. Potter?”

“Oh, not really, Professor McGonagall. I just read all the books on Transfiguration I could find in the library. It was kind of—all of them. Not just one.”

Severus narrows his eyes. And _that_ was a lie, like the one Potter told in his first class about not knowing the difference between monkshood and wolfsbane. Severus honestly wouldn’t be surprised if some of his other statements were lies, too. It’s just that sometimes, the way they’re worded can skirt past the attention of a Legilimens.

He doesn’t think there is a special secret book, though. Minerva would at least be able to suggest a name, and Potter’s reaction would tell Severus more than he could know, without his knowing that Severus was actually listening to the conversation. No, it’s likely Potter is doing something else that leads to his success in the class.

 _Cheating off Granger?_ Hufflepuff does share Transfiguration with the Ravenclaws, from what Severus can remember. And now Severus realizes that he wants nothing more than to walk around that corner, and stare into the boy’s eyes, and _know_. His thwarted desire for secrets, dormant since the war, is burning again now.

Minerva seems almost determined to grant that desire, although of course she can’t know that Severus is there. From the sound of it, she’s practically patting Potter’s head. “Of course, Mr. Potter. I’ll tell other students that when they ask me what your secret is.”

“They always think there’s _some_ secret, don’t they, Professor?” Potter sounds almost—contemptuous. Severus has never heard the boy sound like that. If anything, he keeps so silent most of the time that it’s hard to discern what he’s feeling. Severus feels as though he now has pricked ears and reaching whiskers, reaching for Potter’s secret.

“Yes, they frequently do. And all you really need is—”

“Hard work.”

Minerva laughs and agrees with what she probably sees as a typically Hufflepuff sentiment, but _Severus_ is the one who’s listening. _Severus_ is the one who can work out that Potter really means it, because his voice is so much more fervent than before.

But hard work at what? He _will_ find out.

Minerva finally steps back into her classroom, and Potter begins walking down the corridor. The one that leads towards Ravenclaw Tower, Severus notes, _not_ the Hufflepuff common room or the library. He hastily moves after Potter, and calls his name softly when Potter’s about to round another corner.

Potter turns around, But, infuriatingly, he keeps his eyes on the floor. “Yes, Professor Snape?”

“Look up at me, please, Mr. Potter.” Severus keeps his voice cool from long years of practice. What has Potter been doing? Usually only students who suspect they’re about to get detention avoid his eyes so diligently.

But Potter focuses on his forehead and nose when he does, not looking into his eyes. Severus stares at him. Desire to find out dies before his astonishment and fury, burned to a crisp. How _can_ this boy—?

Then again, James Potter knows about his Legilimency. Severus used it on him a few times when the Order of the Phoenix was still active, before Albus’s grand battle in which he defeated the Dark Lord.

“My eyes, Mr. Potter,” he says. “Meet my eyes.”

“I’m sorry, Professor,” Potter whispers. “But I get a pounding headache whenever I do that. I just think that your magic is so much more powerful than mine that it sort of overpowers mine and makes me feel that way, you know?”

That is indeed a documented phenomenon when powerful wizards interact with the magically weak. Not a common one, and not something that Lily and James Potter would probably have told her son about, but it exists. Severus stares again.

In the meantime, Potter drops his gaze again and stands there, to all appearances a pathetic little Hufflepuff awaiting orders.

_If he really is clever and hiding all the secrets I think he is, then how did he avoid being Sorted into Slytherin?_

Severus has heard rumors that students can bargain with the Sorting Hat, but he doesn’t believe them. Otherwise, the Hat would have listened to his desperate pleas all those years ago to be in Gryffindor with Lily.

“Ten points from Hufflepuff for not doing as you’re told,” he snaps, and sweeps on. He doesn’t think it will affect Potter much. The infuriating brat doesn’t act as though he cares about House points at all. Or his House. He doesn’t seem to have many friends there.

What _does_ he care about, then?

The desire to know is back, but by the time Severus turns around again, Potter is gone.


	2. Chapter 2

_Younger Siblings_

“What a brilliant wand you have, Sol!”

Harry peers at his younger brother over the top of his book. It’s the summer between his first and second years, and the upcoming term will be Sol’s first at Hogwarts. Sol is making a huge shower of sparks rise from his wand—thirteen inches, oak, unicorn hair—and Mum and Dad are applauding.

Harry smiles when they look at him. “That _is_ brilliant,” he agrees, and goes back to his books.

He’s aware of his parents exchanging worried glances, but they do that about him all the time, so it’s easier to ignore. It’s not until a few hours later, after dinner, when Sol has gone upstairs to play Aurors Against Death Eaters with Romulus and Alicia, that Mum comes to find him.

“Can I talk to you, Harry?”

“Oh, of course, Mum,” Harry says, and puts his book down, giving her his full attention. She rubs her hands nervously against the side of her robe. His mother is beautiful, Harry thinks, with that shining red hair a few of his siblings have and those green eyes he was the only one to inherit.

“I just—I don’t want you to be jealous of Sol,” Mum says, and she almost stumbles over the words. “Since he’ll have more powerful magic and a lot of friends and he’ll probably be in Gryffindor.”

Harry feels a distant pity. He’s felt it before. He didn’t write to his parents because he _knew_ they would be concerned about him being in Hufflepuff, and they talked almost non-stop about it when he was home on the Christmas and Easter holidays. They think he’s resentful that he wasn’t in Gryffindor.

Harry loves his parents. He wants to impress them. He understands them. But sometimes he thinks they’re more than a little close-minded.

“I’m not,” he says.

Mum has started to speak again, but she falls silent and blinks so hard it looks like she’s fluttering her eyelashes. “You’re not—jealous?”

“No.” Harry shakes his head. “It’s useless. And it would be petty of me. Sol can’t help being born with powerful magic.” And Sol can’t help the way Sirius likes him better, either, or that he’ll probably be in Gryffindor. (Not that Harry is at all jealous of that last one). “And I don’t want to be in Gryffindor anyway.”

“Oh.” Mum hesitates a second. Then she says, “But if you didn’t want to be in Gryffindor, why didn’t you write to us the first part of last year?”

“Because I knew you would say that I _should_ want to be in Gryffindor,” Harry says. It’s his turn to blink. Surely his mother knows this? “I didn’t want to listen to you tell me over and over that it was all right to be in Hufflepuff, because I know you don’t believe that and you’d just want to reassure me. I don’t like being falsely reassured.”

Mum’s face turns a bright crimson. “Of _course_ we think it’s okay that you’re in Hufflepuff, Harry!”

“But then why did you assume I would be jealous if Sol was put in Gryffindor?”

Mum spends a moment fussing with the line of her robe, which Harry doesn’t think needs any help. Then she gives him a helpless smile. “Maybe we were being silly, Harry. I just _thought_ you would be jealous of him. I suppose I don’t have any proof that you are.”

Harry gives her a polite nod. That’s right. He wants his parents to stop assuming that he’s jealous of his siblings and start warning his siblings not to be jealous of _him_. He’s decided that he won’t show them anything until he can do everything that Sol and Romulus do, and better. Alicia is too young yet—just seven—for him to be sure what she’ll get up to at school.

“And I want you to know that we don’t love you any less.” Mum is talking intensely, the way she does sometimes with people through the Floo when she’s consulting on Charms accidents at St. Mungo’s, her hair falling forwards around her face and her eyes flashing. “ _Please_ never think that. We love you just the same as everyone else. We just know it’s going to be—harder for you.”

Harry nods. He knows his parents don’t love him any less. They just want to protect him from a wizarding world that treats Squibs harshly.

They don’t love him any less. It just _feels_ like they do.

“I’m glad we had this talk,” Mum says, sounding vastly relieved. She stands up and hugs him. “And you know, you don’t have to read all the time! There are plenty of things you can do that don’t involve magic.”

“But Sol and Romulus only want to play those games.” Harry sometimes thinks Alicia is bookish, like him, but again, too young to tell.

“That _does_ sound like you’re jealous, Harry.”

He can’t explain this to them. He isn’t old enough. Harry knows that he understands a lot of things better than the adults around him _think_ he does, but sometimes he agrees that they’re right, and he doesn’t have the experience or the words. “I’m not,” he says simply now, and goes back to his book.

Mum sighs, strokes his hair, and wanders away. Perhaps for a private conversation with Dad, Harry thinks. She often has them after she’s talked with Harry.

 _One of these days, she won’t need to do that,_ Harry thinks, and delves back into advanced Transfiguration theory. He’s starting to think that he’ll have to study Potions, too. But on his own. Professor Snape hates Potters too much not to feed him wrong information or tell him he’s stupid, which Harry doesn’t have time for.

*

“GRYFFINDOR!”

Severus rolls his eyes. He doesn’t know why he thought, for one moment, that another Potter might go to a different House. But no, Sol Potter is flopping out from under the Sorting Hat and straight into the arms of his Weasley comrades at the Gryffindor table.

Severus can’t help glancing at Potter— _the_ Potter, he calls him in his mind—to see his reaction. He applauds for his brother, politely, and then delves into the book he has propped in front of him. Severus finds himself craning his neck to see the title, but can’t make it out before he has to turn around to applaud a Slytherin.

When he can focus on the Potter again, one of his Housemates is speaking to him. The Diggory boy, one of the few Hufflepuffs Severus can approve of. He casts an Eavesdropping Charm to listen in.

“There are some people saying you should have been put in Ravenclaw, Harry!”

“Mm-hm,” Potter says, without glancing up from his book.

“And now you’re studying _Potions?_ But you get terrible marks in that class!”

Potter glances up, exactly as if he’s aware of the way that Severus’s shoulders have stiffened. “But doesn’t that make you think I should study some more?”

“Well, maybe, but not that much,” Diggory says firmly, and shuts the book and puts it away. Now Severus thinks he recognizes it, from the size and the flaking gold in the center of the cover. Probably Eldon Huxley’s _Potions and Their Uses._ Certainly a library book, but not one he would have expected a second-year to take out. “Come on, tell me what Quidditch team you favor. I’ve never known.”

Severus cancels the charm, because he knows the rest of the conversation will be inane. However, it seems the Potter agrees with him. He answers tolerantly enough, but his eyes continually stray towards the place under the table that Diggory shoved his book.

Severus flexes his fingers around his knife before he looks away and digs into his dinner. He may have misjudged the Potters. At least _one_ of them wants to make an effort and improve at the subject that he always does badly in.

And who knows? Perhaps that judgment will turn out to have been a misjudgment about the younger Potters, as well.

*

_No. No, it is not._

Sol Potter is a powerful wizard—and that is all Severus can say for him. He is all energy, crackling like sparks from a practice wand being waved around. He doesn’t know how to channel that energy. He does know spells, but none that are useful in Potions.

And from the way he steps into the class with the crowd of his Gryffindor yearmates and aims a vindictive glance in Severus’s direction, family legend has prepared him for an ogre. Severus snarls before he can stop it, his own hatred rising to match it.

He never claimed to be particularly mature, and so he takes great delight in noting down everything that is wrong with Sol’s potion: color, consistency, number of ingredients distributed into it, coverage of the bottom of the cauldron, amount steaming away in vapor. The boy finally turns around so fast he almost topples out of his seat and glares at him.

“Why are you doing this, huh?” he snarls at Snape. “It’s just because you hate all Potters who can stand up to you, right?”

Severus gazes down at the boy with a distant glance, while inwardly his mind pauses. Stand up to him? Has the Potter complained to his parents about Severus? But no, in that case, he would have received at least one Howler. And in a strange way, the Potter who was already here _has_ stood up to Severus. He simply refuses to acknowledge him as important, and he obviously plans to study Potions on his own.

“I dislike all students who force their cheek on a professor,” Severus says smoothly, on the outside. His tongue need never pause for his brain, if he does not wish it to. “Ten points from Gryffindor, and detention for tonight. Seven-o’clock, Mr. Potter.” He turns and sweeps on, knowing that he looks intimidating; it seems as if the Hollisberry girl over there might have an accident.

Potter is muttering in outrage behind him, comforted by the youngest Weasley child—although Severus has heard a rumor that Molly Weasley might be pregnant _again_ , sweet Merlin—and a Gryffindor boy named Something Kennedy. Severus savors the outrage, and thinks a little about _the_ Potter.

But not too long. He has to scare the life out of the Hollisberry girl now.

_Life At Hogwarts_

Harry sits back from the book and reads the paragraph he just read again. It’s breakfast, but Cedric always sleeps in late, so Harry isn’t worried about his study being interrupted the way it was last night.

If this paragraph is right, or maybe he should say if he’s understanding it right…

Then Snape really _has_ been steering them wrong all these years. Deliberately lying? Or just not presenting things the way the book’s author does?

Harry thoughtfully bites into an apple and flips the page to make sure that he isn’t forgetting something important from a thousand words ago. No. The author, Huxley, is insistent. He really does think that a potion’s success depends on the personal power and affinity for potions of the brewer.

 _Well, no wonder Snape’s so good at it, then, and he thinks we should be, too._ Harry finishes his apple and bends down to stare at the words on the page while imagining his mind as a crystalline box with light glowing through it. He doesn’t know why, but this is the visualization that works best when he wants to memorize something. It’s a pain to read it over and over while keeping that crystalline box clear in his mind, but when he does, he never forgets something he’s read.

And he wants to know how to be good at Potions. If Huxley is right, then Snape can’t help him with it, anyway. Harry doesn’t have enough power. He’ll have to flex his magic and make it grow until he’s good at Potions the way he’s done when it comes to Charms.

 _Snape probably also thinks that no one in particular has his gift,_ Harry admits to himself. _And I don’t have an_ affinity _for potions. Not the way Snape does._

A second later, Harry wants to snort. So what? When has that _ever_ stopped him? You could say that he didn’t have an “affinity” for Charms or Transfiguration, either, but he’s steadily bringing them under his control.

He will do the same with Potions.

Having memorized Huxley’s words, Harry shuts the book with a snap and turns to eating his breakfast. For one thing, Cedric is coming, and he would make Harry put the book away anyway. For a second, Harry doesn’t think he’ll learn anything else half as useful.

And for a third, he doesn’t want Snape to see what he’s reading. He has enough to deal with, given the pitying looks his family doesn’t seem to realize are on their faces most of the time; he doesn’t need sneers and coolly raised eyebrows.

*

“I just don’t _understand_ it, Minerva. How can he be doing well in your class, which requires all that magic a Squib wouldn’t even _have_ most of the time, and so badly in mine, when it’s mostly theory and just getting the plants to respect you?”

Severus pauses with a cup of tea halfway to his lips. Most of the time, he doesn’t sit next to Pomona at lunch; either Albus or Minerva takes that seat, since the others are too wary of him. But he was late today, and Pomona has his normal chair and is almost waving her arms at Minerva in distress.

Long before he catches the name, Severus is sure they’re talking about the Hufflepuff Potter. He fills his plate and chews quietly as he listens.

“I don’t know for sure, Pomona.” Minerva is in “sympathetic listener” mode: fingers hooked together beneath her chin, her head tilted and her eyes crinkled a little. “I can tell you what I _think_ from observing Harry.”

“Yes, please.” Pomona nods so hard that her hat slides down over one ear, making Severus snort into his salad.

“He doesn’t much value the classes a Squib _should_ excel in,” says Minerva bluntly. “Or a wizard with weak magic, I think we should say, since he’s definitely no Squib. He was probably told over and over at home that he would do fine with Herbology, and Potions, and Astronomy, and History of Magic, and he could make a worthwhile career out of those. But he doesn’t want to. He wants to master the harder subjects, and I know that he’s working overtime on Charms—Filius told me—and Transfiguration—of course I see that—and Defense—almost all self-study, since, while I do honor Quirinus for _trying_ , he’s not a good professor for that subject.” Minerva glances over her shoulder to make sure said Quirinus isn’t at the table, which is too bad. Severus doesn’t think people should get into trouble for speaking the truth, unless it’s cheek. “I understand why Albus wants to keep Quirinus in place, since we had all those troubles with filling the Defense position for so many years until Tom’s death broke the curse, but he _should_ choose someone else.”

“Has Mr. Potter shown any interest in electives?”

“I wish he would talk to you more as Head of his House,” Minerva mutters, maybe also thinking it would spare her conversations like this one. “But he did mention to me that he likes Arithmancy and Ancient Runes.”

“He could do the theory on both of them well enough.” Pomona sounds doubtful. “And the physical motions of drawing the runes. But to _empower_ the runes, or make the equations into incantations—”

“I know. But that’s what he wants to do.”

“What does he want to do, though? Does he want to be an Auror or a Healer? I’m afraid he’ll never have the magic for that. He still needs all that practice to master a spell, and Healers and Aurors have to react quickly.”

Severus rolls his eyes at his bread. Plenty of Aurors and Healers _don’t_ react all that quickly, which is one reason Aurors are partnered with each other and Healers work in an environment where help is always available. He’s becoming convinced that Harry Potter can do anything he sets his mind to.

Except, perhaps, be polite to Severus or excel in his Potions class.

 _I wonder why he’s so determined not to be polite to me,_ Severus thinks, and begins to tear his bread into smaller pieces. _I can understand why he doesn’t care about Potions if Minerva’s suspicions are true, but why not care about getting detentions? They would interfere with his efforts to become better in the more difficult subjects._

Severus pauses with his hands on either side of his plate. Well. Now that he thinks about it, _Harry_ Potter hasn’t taken any detentions with him this year. It’s always his brother. Harry just keeps his head down in class and nods when Severus scolds him or takes points from Hufflepuff.

He’s probably doing exactly what Minerva says. Plodding through classes that people think he should be naturally good in by virtue of having less powerful magic, and then excelling in the more difficult subjects in his off-hours.

Severus narrows his eyes and stands. He finds himself unwilling to stand by and watch someone make a fool of him. Not to mention, if Potter is one of the few students in his class with a _brain_ , Severus refuses to let him ignore the most important subject.

*

“You are to come to my office tonight at nine-o’clock, Potter.”

Harry wrinkles his nose a little as Snape sweeps off. He’s been trying so hard lately not to get detentions, because he’s working on mastering some special defensive spells against Dark creatures, and they’re taking all his attention.

But needs must, and at least with the detentions Snape usually assigns, Harry can move his hands and let his brain exercise itself. He turns back to the potion in front of him and stirs it idly. He knows that it isn’t going to be up to Snape’s standards anyway.

It isn’t, and Snape glares at him harder than ever as Harry hands his vial in. Who knows why? Harry doesn’t. He goes up to the Owlery to visit with Asphodel, the white owl that he bought in Diagon Alley the last time he was there, and then to dinner, and then he does get in a little study of the theory behind his spells after all, and then he’s knocking on Snape’s door.

Snape barks at him to enter, as usual. But Harry halts when he opens the door and sees the single chair in front of the desk. There’s no parchment and quill and ink, the way there would have to be if he was doing lines.

“Sit down, Potter.”

But he is here for detention, after all, even if it’s kind of a weird detention. Harry sits down, narrowing his eyes and saying nothing.

“I know that you are considerably cleverer than you have presented yourself,” Snape begins, which makes Harry blink. He isn’t sure if he’s more surprised that someone was telling Snape that or that Snape _listened_. “You are no longer going to put more effort into Charms and Transfiguration than Potions. Tell me why you ignore them!”

His voice has risen. Harry gives him a flat stare. He can’t believe Snape doesn’t see it.

“ _Tell me_.” At least Snape has lowered his voice this time, but he’s also marched around the desk, and he’s glaring down at Harry as though he has the right to ask questions of him at all, when he’s as pathetic a teacher as he is.

Harry folds his arms. What’s Snape going to do, give him another detention?

Snape finally seems to realize he’s going about this the wrong way. Not that there is a right one, as far as Harry’s concerned, but there’s a way that might get Snape his answers and a way that definitely won’t. Snape rolls his eyes, sighs, and leans back against his desk, watching Harry.

“Does it have something to do with your low magical power and you being _expected_ to master Potions?”

Harry shrugs. He knows shrugs infuriate Snape. From the way his jaw almost pops out of his skin, it does it this time, though. But, unfortunately, Snape doesn’t give up.

“Or does it have something to do with me?”

 _Good job, Snape._ Harry makes sure to keep his eyes down, as if he’s being respectful and submissive, so that Snape won’t read that thought out of his mind. After a longer time than it needs, he nods.

“Why?”

This one he can’t answer by being nonverbal. And Snape has calmed down. That means he might hold Harry in detention for hours, and Harry finds it much harder to control his magic when he isn’t well-rested. He sighs and answers.

“You don’t teach well, sir. And I know that nothing I can do will ever please you, because I’m a Potter and look so much like my dad. So I thought I might as well save my effort for things that will get me decent results.”

Snape is silent. Harry thinks that either he’ll ask more questions in a second, or he’s in the grip of a rage so vast that he’ll order Harry out the door before he throws something.

But he does neither, and after a few minutes, Harry looks up at Snape with a frown. Snape is staring back at him. His eyes are deep in a way that intrigues Harry for a second before he looks away. The last thing he wants to do is give Snape free permission to read his mind when he’s done so much to prevent it.

“How did the Hat not put you in Slytherin?”

“Because I have no ambitions to be a sadistic wanker, sir.”

“Ten points from—”

But Snape cuts off. Harry looks up in a small bit of interest. He’d already started to go away in his mind to the place that he goes when he’s not confronted with something he has to do right now, the place where he decides what magic he’s going to learn next.

Snape is studying his every move. Harry masters the temptation to flick out his tongue at him. He isn’t going to study how to become a frog, or how to be chopped up into Potions ingredients of the right size for a cauldron.

*

Severus almost did it. He almost took ten points from Hufflepuff in his frustration.

But he already knew the boy doesn’t _care_ about House points. And this time, he saw the way those green eyes changed, shifting away from him and turning soft and dream-like. He isn’t focused on Severus anymore, when he does that. He’s thinking about his magic, or his parents, or something else in a way that Severus can’t penetrate.

It’s incredibly frustrating.

So Severus holds his tongue and his temper, and waits until the boy looks back at him. Then he speaks quietly. “What you seem to have is a driving _ambition_ to learn as much as you can about magic. And a driving cunning to achieve it.”

“But I don’t have any ambition to matter in the eyes of the world,” Potter points out, his voice utterly calm. Severus knows students three years older than he is who can’t be that calm, especially in front of their feared Potions master. “That was what the Sorting Hat asked me. I don’t care if anyone knows I’m great. I don’t do power plays for their own sake. I don’t care what my Housemates think of me. The Sorting Hat asked me all these questions, and then it decided that Hufflepuff was the place for me.”

 _Ah-ha._ Potter _is_ human after all. Severus caught a twitch of a smile on his mouth a moment ago, a glint of satisfaction in his eyes.

“There _are_ people you want to matter to,” he says, studying the boy as hard as he ever did any Dark Arts text. “And they would turn away from you if you were placed into my House. Is that not so?”

The flinch is unmistakable this time. Severus stalks towards him and halts in front of the boy, lowering his voice.

“You want to matter to your parents. Who look at you and see a Squib, not the dedicated young wizard that both you _and I_ know you are. Minerva suspects, doesn’t she? So does Pomona. But both of them are fooled by the fact that it takes you longer to master the magic.” Severus stalks behind Potter. Potter doesn’t turn to face him, which is impressive in its own way. “They do not see the strength when you do.”

Potter forms his hand into a fist for a second. Then he shrugs and says, “It doesn’t matter, sir. Right now, my parents don’t know, either. I’m going to show them when I’ve mastered some really impressive magic and they can’t turn it into—”

He doesn’t finish, but Severus knows what he would have said. _Denial. They would deny that he is a skilled wizard without some strong proof._

 _They are as blind as Minerva and Pomona._ Severus feels a strange exultation pour through him. _And this is a way to triumph over James Potter that he will never recover from, not when he learns who really saw the potential in his son._

“You are ignoring Potions in some misguided quest to become seen as more than an average Squib,” he says idly, and comes to rest against his own desk, staring intently at Potter all the while. “You should not ignore such a powerful subset of magic. I will help you learn it.”

“What? You can’t.”

If it was indignant, spluttering, any kind of emotion like that at all, Severus would know that Potter is upset about Severus discovering his secret. But this is merely half-laughing, and Potter shakes his head.

And Severus again knows rage.

“Why not?” he hisses, turning and facing Potter down. “Do you think that only Charms and Transfiguration can provide you true power? And Defense Against the Dark Arts?” It wouldn’t surprise him if Potter is trying hard in that class, as well, although it would be masked by the inefficiency of the professor. “Do you think—”

He stops, because Potter is shaking his head in a different way.

“I know you have the skill, sir,” Potter says, in a simple, condescending tone that reminds Severus far too much of Albus. “But you don’t have the will. You would _try_ to help me, I know that. But you would end up hating me because I’m a Potter, and then you would spend more time making cutting remarks than helping me.” He stands up and stretches his arms out so the bones seem to pop. “Thank you for the offer, though.” He turns towards the door.

Severus feels as though someone has punched him in the chest and then walked away instead of running. He waves his wand to spell the door locked. Potter merely turns around and looks at him patiently.

The patient look is the final straw.

“I will _help_ you,” Severus hisses. “Not a single cutting remark, as long as we keep this from the ears of your parents until you are an acceptable level of skill. Like all your other skills. Now, _get out_.”

*

Standing in the corridor beyond Snape’s office, Harry blinks and looks at the wall. He almost expects a snake to appear and invite him into the secret quarters of Salazar Slytherin or something like that.

At this point, nothing would surprise him.

But he _does_ feel a slight, smug smile pull on his lips as he remembers how thoroughly he confounded Snape. Without even a Confundus Charm! And got help from him. Which is something that Harry doesn’t believe a student outside Slytherin has ever received.

It all makes him almost swagger as he walks down the corridor. But then he remembers his time of neglected practice, and turns towards the classroom where he always works.

Help with Potions will be appreciated, but he _really_ wants to get this particular spell right.


	3. Chapter 3

“You’re not jealous of me, right?”

Harry looks up. He’s sitting on the grass in front of Lion’s Door, the small and absurdly named house they moved to last year, and Sol is standing in front of Harry and looking at him with those hazel eyes that turn almost golden in the light sometimes.

Harry smiles and shakes his head. “No, of course not.”

“Because Mum and Dad…” Sol trails off, and sits down on the grass in front of Harry to begin pulling blades. Harry almost tells him not to do that, but he doesn’t think Sol would react well, so he keeps his mouth shut. Harry goes back to his book.

Sol lies on his back as if he’s watching clouds. Harry wonders a little about what he sees—powerful wizards are supposed to be able to make out cloud-patterns better than others, and sometimes even use them to predict the future—but Sol will tell him if it’s important.

“Because Mum and Dad think you are,” Sol finally says, after so long that Harry thinks the conversation is going to lapse.

Harry sighs and shuts the book on his finger. “That’s because Mum and Dad are ashamed.”

“Of what?”

“Of producing a wizard that’s almost a Squib. No one knew I would have enough strength to go to Hogwarts until the letter actually arrived.” _Except me._ But Harry knows that talking about his own belief in himself just comes across as conceited, so he doesn’t. “They were relieved when you and Romulus and Alicia were born, but that just makes them more concerned for me. Because what if I _had_ turned out to be a Squib?”

Sol flips over on his side, his brow furrowed. His hair flops over his face. Harry thinks he should push it out of his eyes, but once again, he isn’t going to suggest it. “That doesn’t make sense, though. They’re always talking about how you shouldn’t treat Squibs differently from regular wizards.”

Harry nods. “But it’s different to think you have a Squib child yourself. They can be all for Squib rights in the abstract and still be ashamed of me in particular.” He sighs when Sol just stares at him. “Look at it this way. Uncle Remus is one of their best friends, right?”

Sol bobs his head.

“And they support werewolf rights?”

Nod, nod.

“But wouldn’t they still be upset if one of us got turned into a werewolf? If Remus ever accidentally endangered us? That’s what I mean. They can support people who are werewolves but not want one of their children to be one.”

Sol spends some time chewing that over, enough time that Harry goes back to his book. It describes the wand movements you need to achieve complex Transfiguration better than any other book he’s read. Harry is pretty sure that he can get this right if he just works at it.

“That’s different, though,” Sol finally says. His voice is certain. Sol always takes a while to think things through, but he’s strong in his conclusions when he comes to them. “Because werewolves are dangerous even though they can take Wolfsbane, but Squibs aren’t.”

“They’re dangerous to the magic of a family.”

“Mum says that’s nonsense.”

“She says it to other people, but she still thinks it deep down,” Harry says quietly. “Mum’s insecure, you _know_ that. Her own sister was jealous of her. So many people thought that her marrying into a pure-blood family wasn’t a good thing. She always feels like she has to be better than the pure-blood mothers at _anything_. And when her first child was almost a Squib, that just made some people think they were right, that mixing Muggle blood into a family was a death sentence for their magic.”

“ _Oh_.” Sol exhales it long and slow, and then he stands up and runs into the house.

Harry shakes his head a little, and goes on reading.

*

Sol doesn’t talk to him about that again, but it does have one unexpected consequence. The next time Lily sits down with Harry and tries to tell him gently that she doesn’t think she can be a Healer, Romulus stands up for him.

“You shouldn’t say that, Mum.”

Lily blinks and glances at her youngest son. Harry glances with her. Romulus looks mostly like Sol, but his red hair is a little darker, on the side of auburn, and his eyes a little less hazel. He has an even more stubborn jaw, though.

“Harry’s not a Squib,” Romulus says, with all the certainty of nine years old. “That means he can be a Healer.”

“But being a Healer requires very complex and subtle magic,” Lily says. Harry watches the way her face softens when she speaks to one of her children who has safe, powerful magic. That’s okay. One day her face will change like that for _him_. “Harry is stronger than we thought, but not as strong as that.”

“But how do you know? You’re not a Healer.”

Harry keeps his face smooth with an effort. It kind of helps that he was working with Professor Snape on Potions for so much of this year. He has to remain blank around him at all times, or Professor Snape thinks Harry is making fun of him.

But Romulus just _always_ says things like that, whether it’s telling Dad that he’s being a bully and shouldn’t bully people, or telling Sirius he doesn’t want to play right now, or toddling downstairs, the way he did when he was three, to scold everyone that Remus’s door wasn’t shut. And their parents have never known how to deal with him.

“I’ve talked to Healers,” Lily says, her voice a little sharp. Harry looks at her and wonders idly if she sounded like that when she and Professor Snape lost their friendship, whatever the circumstances were. “I know that Alicia wants to be one. I do know what’s involved.”

“But Harry’s always reading. So he’ll be ready by the time he wants to be one.”

“I don’t actually want to be a Healer,” Harry says calmly. “But thanks for defending me, Rom.”

“Don’t _call_ me that!”

Harry shrugs and goes back to his book. Honestly, he does it because Romulus looks as cute as hell when he’s pouting.

“I’m sorry, Harry, but I don’t think that you can be an Auror, either,” Lily says, apparently having decided to ignore Romulus’s incipient temper tantrum.

Harry blinks and looks up. “I don’t want to be.”

“But you’re always studying…”

“Well, there are other careers besides Auror and Healer.”

“Yes, Mum, don’t you know _anything_?”

That makes Lily send Romulus up to his room for a while, but she goes with him, so Harry can _finally_ go back to his book. And late that night, when he’s alone his room and sure that no one else is awake, he draws his wand—the latest charm he learned was a way to take the Trace off it—and aims it at a pillow on the other side of his bed and concentrates as hard as he can and makes the right wand movement.

The pillow turns into a cat, for just a second. The next instant, it’s a fluffy pillow again.

But that’s okay. Regular Transfigurations never last for that long, either. It’s long enough to make Harry flop back against his ordinary pillows, exhilarated.

_I’m going to be great someday. Then, they’ll all believe me._

_Aconite_

Severus grits his teeth as Remus Lupin, of all people, chatters away next to him. He has to put up with the fool for at least a year, since Albus finally heeded Minerva’s pleas and sacked Quirrell. That means he _cannot_ strangle him. And he doesn’t want to come close enough to be marked by a werewolf’s nails, anyway, even when it is not a full moon.

His gaze strays to the Potter. He’s reading at the Hufflepuff table again, as usual. The other third-years chatter around him as if he doesn’t exist. Severus asked him once how he could bear that. Potter only stared at him with his brow wrinkling slightly.

“But I don’t pay any attention to them,” he finally said. “So why should they pay any attention to me, either?”

Severus didn’t have an answer for that. He doesn’t have an answer right now, either, except that _no one_ should be that preternaturally accepting. He scowls at the Potter. In response, the Potter turns a page.

“Why do you hate Harry so much, Severus?”

“Because of how exactly he’s like his father.”

It’s a practiced, automatic answer, one Severus perfected last year when he didn’t want to reveal to anyone that he was actually tutoring the Potter in Potions. But as he watches the boy carefully maneuver a forkful of meat dripping with red sauce so that it doesn’t mark the pages of his book, he realizes it is no longer true in any sense except as an excuse.

The Potter is nothing like his father. The younger one, yes. But Severus sees only one kind of arrogance in the way Harry Potter holds himself, meets people’s eyes or doesn’t meet them, reads at the table, and ignores the remarks made about his lack of remarkable magic.

The arrogance that says he can ignore them, because they will never be as great as he will be, one day.

It’s a familiar kind of arrogance. It should be, when Severus sees it staring back from the mirror every morning.

*

“You _know_ the difference between slicing and squashing, Potter.”

Harry nods and studies the ingredients in front of him again. There’s aconite, and tarnished crumbs of silver, and the corpses of dragonflies that have been dipped into some sort of covering he doesn’t recognize.

It’s the dragonflies that decide him, more than anything. He looks up at Professor Snape. “Sorry, sir. But this is part of the steps for preparing the Wolfsbane potion for Professor Lupin, isn’t it?”

Snape’s hands stop working over his own cauldron, but a second later, he makes a small, impatient sound, and scatters his own leaves of sliced aconite into the potion. “Yes,” he says harshly, turning his head. “I am surprised you recognize it.”

“I’ve been reading up on a lot of modern Potions history and different combinations of ingredients, sir.”

“And?”

“I know that it’s an incredibly complex potion, and my knowledge isn’t great, as yet. I’m surprised that you’re giving me the honor of preparing it with you, sir.”

Harry means exactly what he says, but Snape looms over him a second later, staring and sneering down at him. Harry blinks. It _is_ an honor, that Snape would trust him with something so complicated and delicate. He’s not sure why Snape thinks Harry was mocking him, but that has to be what the expression on his face is about.

But Snape shakes his head a second later. “Does _nothing_ faze you, Potter?”

“I’m not sure what you mean, sir.”

“You meant it when you said it was an honor.”

“Yes, sir. I know how high your standards are for the students you help outside of class. I didn’t think I was anywhere near the level where I could help you yet.”

Snape stares at him longer, and then snorts. “There are NEWT students in my classes currently who wouldn’t have recognized this potion’s ingredients without being told what they were. _That_ is the reason, Potter.” And back he goes to slicing, as if nothing has changed, adding only, over his shoulder, “ _Show me_ that you know the difference between slicing and squashing the dragonflies.”

Harry works thoughtfully on the dragonflies that he now knows have been rolled, rather than dipped, in boiled deadly nightshade. He comes to one possible meaning for Snape’s words immediately, but it takes until the end of the night, when he hasn’t earned more than a few curt words, none of them a scolding, for him to dare to accept it.

Snape thinks—that Harry really has studied and proved himself worth something.

Harry permits himself a full five minutes of luxuriating in that knowledge in his own bed that night before he falls asleep. Then he wakes up in the morning and goes to his classes and his extra practice as usual.

No matter what, he isn’t going to get a big head. Really great people don’t have those.

*

Remus holds Harry back after class one day. Harry looks at him curiously as he slings his bag over his shoulder. Remus hasn’t approached him much all year, although he also hasn’t acted as though it’s a surprise when Harry knows answers from the Defense textbook or can cast the spells right.

Now, though, Remus is frowning, and he locks the door before he speaks. “I need to know if you’re cheating, Harry.”

“Of course I’m not!”

Harry shouts it before he can stop himself. Remus raises a calming hand. “It’s all right. I hadn’t thought you were. But—you don’t normally have the power to cast spells like the _Riddiikulus_ Charm so strongly. Where did you get it?”

Harry debates telling Remus the truth, but Remus can never keep his mouth shut around Sirius, and Sirius can never keep his mouth shut around the Potters. He still doesn’t want his secrets exposed. He settles for, “I have to practice casting a lot in Hogwarts.”

“All the casting in the world won’t make a strong wizard out of a Squib.”

Harry sighs. Maybe he can prepare the ground a bit for the kind of revelation he’ll have to make after Hogwarts. “Did it ever occur to you that the Healers _might_ have mismeasured my strength? I can’t really be a Squib because I got a Hogwarts letter. That Healer we used to see got arrested a few years ago for being drunk on the job. Maybe the one I saw was drunk the day he tested me, too?”

Remus only shakes his head, his mouth locking into a stubborn line. “It’s very rare that Healers drink. I doubt the one you saw was.”

“Fine. Then don’t believe me.”

“Harry, wait! I’m not trying to alienate you. It just seems that you’re far more like an average wizard than I ever thought.”

_I’m not average. I’m extraordinary._

But Harry reminds himself again not to reveal that, because it would complicate things too much. And he still doesn’t want a big head. And he’s not extraordinary yet in anything except being one of the few non-Slytherin students that Snape helps. “Well, then someone was wrong. It’s not me. It’s not your eyes. Why couldn’t it be the Healer?”

Remus is silent, his mouth pinched in thought.

Harry gives up on him making sense any time soon, and walks out of the classroom.

*

“You are not chopping the bannock leaves neatly.”

Potter puts down the knife and turns away to stare blankly at the wall, exactly as if he had windows in his dungeon lair. Severus frowns at his back. Potter is acting as though he heard Severus and did not hear him at the same time.

Severus goes about soaking his own bannock leaves, boiling the scrim off the first stage of the potion, and combining the two solutions before he steps back and says, “Are you going to tell me the truth, or must I drag it out of you?”

Potter only shakes his head for a moment. Then he turns around and says, “Remus kept me after class the other day because he thought I must be cheating.”

Severus feels as though his own stare has become as blank as Potter’s was a minute ago. That a friend of James Potter would ever bring himself to _believe_ that about of one of James Potter’s children… “Why?”

“He thinks I’m too weak to cast the spells I’ve been casting in Defense.”

“I heard about the third-year lessons. Ridiculously simple matters, given the Boggart and the grindylows.”

“Yes, but he still thought I was too powerful. And I don’t want to tell the truth because he would tell Sirius right away—”

“And Black has no conception of secrecy.” Severus leans his hip against the table for a moment. Potter is reacting differently than any other child in the same situation. That makes it hard to know what to say, how to tune his voice. “So what will you do?”

“Keep it silent, for now. Let Remus write to Mum and Dad if he wants. They won’t be able to get the truth out of me.”

Not _They won’t ask_. Severus studies the boy in front of him, and finds himself opening his mouth to offer the last advice he thought he ever would. “Wouldn’t it be wiser to let them know what you have done? To let them know how powerful you really are?”

“I have to have _undeniable_ proof. Remus is seeing me do the spells and he still doesn’t believe me. I suggested the Healer who thought I was a Squib could have been wrong, and he refused to believe that, either. I have to show them that I can do some really big and impressive things.”

“Helping me with the Wolfsbane, and now with the antidote to Veritaserum, is impressive.”

“Yes, but Dad doesn’t think it is.”

Severus nods. He doesn’t think that James hated Potions in school, but Severus’s mastery of the subject will have given him a distaste for it. “Will you want me there as an audience for this reveal?”

Potter turns and stares at him. Severus realizes only then that Potter never intended to tell anyone about his help. He straightens. Of course he should prefer that. It would only get the Potters, perhaps Lily, into his office to shout at him. Of _course_ he should prefer that Potter never tell the truth.

But that is not the way Potter’s staring makes him feel. It is rather as if he has been promised some intricate pudding the elves have made and then ended up with the only empty plate in the Great Hall.

Rather as if his mother had promised some treat to him and then snatched it away, as she so often did, for lack of time or money or caring.

“I wish to be there.”

Potter nods slowly, his green eyes shadowed and thoughtful. “All right.”

And he goes back to chopping, and after a moment, so does Severus.

*

Harry steps back slowly. He’s finally succeeded at Transfiguring a stone of the wall in the classroom where he practices into glass. Now he can try something else.

“ _Confringo_!”

The glass shatters. Harry flings himself out of the way, even if he’s absolutely confident that his Shield Charm can protect him. And the shards fly over his head and skitter along the floor, and nothing is left of the wall where the glass stood. There’s a hole in the stone now.

Harry supposes that someone might be upset if they find that, but honestly, he’s grinning too hard to care at this point. He used _powerful_ spells, ones that are usually reckoned to be fourth year at least. No one could actually deny that he’s stronger than they thought if they were to see him now.

No one will be able to.


	4. Chapter 4

“How is it that you ended up so different from your siblings when you were all reared in the same house?”

Harry glances at Snape. Why is he asking Harry _this_ question? It’s not a surprise to Harry that Romulus came to Hogwarts this year and Sorted Gryffindor at once. Any more than it’s a surprise to him that Sol did the same thing. They are themselves and Harry is himself.

“I want an answer.”

“I don’t know. They just have that kind of personality.” Harry glances down at the cauldron in front of him and frowns. Veritaserum is less complicated to brew than Wolfsbane, most of the time. He honestly doesn’t understand why he’s messing this one up. He leans over to read the instructions again.

“But you are a Hufflepuff.”

“Yes, but you told me last year that you knew why, sir.”

Snape huffs and leaves the room. Harry shakes his head. It’s a mark of the professor’s trust that he leaves Harry alone with his ingredients and cauldrons and all the other things that Harry could cause mischief with in his lab. That means that Harry won’t hold it against him for being ridiculous about his siblings’ House.

He spends some time carefully stirring his potion again, and smiles with relief as it turns clear. _There_. That’s what he was doing wrong. Just not enough stirs in a clockwise direction. Veritaserum relies on precise following of numbers much more than a lot of potions do.

The door opens again. Snape comes storming back in. Harry looks up, wondering if he caught Sol or Romulus wandering around after curfew again and wants to take out his frustration on Harry. Although Harry will say that that doesn’t happen often. Snape seems to be working grimly towards the day, just like Harry, when they will be able to impress the rest of his family, although Harry thinks that Snape finds all of it frustrating and Harry just thinks it’s his parents.

But Snape parks himself in front of Harry, folds his arms, and proceeds to say nothing about any Gryffindor Potters. “You know that the school is buzzing about the Tri-wizard Tournament.”

“Yes?” Harry stirs the potion gently again, because that’s what the directions say to do.

Snape’s eyes follow the motion of his hand, but he doesn’t comment. “I have overheard your brothers saying that Sol Potter intends to enter it.”

“That’s stupid,” Harry says in disbelief. His brother is more sensible than that, he’s always thought. “Sol is just a third-year.”

“He intends to get past the Age Line.”

“Well, do you want to talk to him and discourage him or something? Not that I think there’s any chance he’ll manage it,” Harry adds. Sol’s magic is powerful, but he’s undisciplined. He likes to rush through things, so he doesn’t practice his wand motions and incantations often enough. Harry has worked with him sometimes, but Sol is on Gryffindor’s Quidditch team and doesn’t have a lot of free time for it, either.

“I want to know whether you encouraged him.”

Sheer outrage almost makes Harry stop stirring the Veritaserum. He keeps going because he can’t stop now if he doesn’t want to ruin the potion. “That’s _ridiculous_. Sir. Of course I didn’t! You think I want either of my younger brothers involved in something that dangerous?”

Snape eyes him, then nods abruptly. “I thought that perhaps you wanted to make your name as a counselor to a young champion. The one who teaches him the magic he needs to know to survive.”

Harry shakes his head impatiently. “I’m not interested in that, sir. Not in anything like that. I’ll talk to Sol and make sure that he knows I think entering the Tournament is a stupid idea.”

“He may find it all the more attractive for that.”

“Sometimes he does things like that,” Harry has to acknowledge, as he gives the final stir to the potion and then casts the Stasis Charm that will keep it still until Professor Snape has the time to add the next round of stirs. It has to pause like that under a Stasis Charm for a while, anyway. “But I have to talk to him because Mum is too far away to make him stop, and Dad might think it’s a grand idea.”

“Is he not mature at all, your father?”

Harry shoots a quick look at Snape. The man is good at casual, tilted as he is against the doorframe with his arms folded, but Harry isn’t fooled. He heard all about the feud between Snape and his father long before he came to school, and not just from Dad, but from Mum and Remus, who were more neutral about it.

“Not about everything,” Harry says, and leaves, mind already turning to what he can say to make Sol stop acting stupid.

*

As it happens, Severus is an audience to the Potter’s attempted persuasion of his younger brother, much though he did not wish to be. He stops around the corner on one of his nightly patrols. It is not curfew, not yet, but only five minutes away. And apparently the Potter has chosen this time to speak to the Gryffindor one.

“But I _want_ to! Just think what an adventure it’s going to be! By the time I’m old enough to compete, the Tournament will be over!”

“Just think how dangerous it’s going to be.”

“But that doesn’t matter. You should go on adventures to rescue people and show off your bravery.”

“Who will you be rescuing though, Sol?”

“I read up on the Tournament, Harry. The Second Task is always a rescue of some kind. A helpless prisoner or a member of your family or something. I want to do it!”

One of Severus’s eyebrows creeps upwards. Reading up on the Tournament is more than he thought any Gryffindor would do.

“But the other Tasks? They used _chimeras_ for one of the First Tasks, Sol. In the last one where all the Champions ended up dying. And all of them were at least four years older than you.”

“I want to do it! And I have a way to fool the Age Line.”

“Oh?”

The Potter has just the right amount of disinterest in his voice, Severus admits. Sol Potter hesitates, but in the end, he can’t give up on the effort of trying to impress his bored older sibling.

“I’m going to owl Dad to send me one of the really old artifacts from the vaults. Someone who’s carrying it has to be an adult most of the time. The Age Line isn’t going to know that Potters can carry it when they’re younger than seventeen.”

Severus tilts his head. It will not work, but the intelligence of the plan surprises him.

“Huh. Well, I don’t want you to do it, Sol.”

“You’re just jealous that you didn’t think of it first! And scared.”

There is a soft hiss that could be mistaken for Parseltongue if one was not Severus and did not know better. Then the Potter storms past him, face dark. His younger brother leans out, saying, “I’m sorry, Harry. I didn’t mean—you aren’t jealous of me, I _know_ that! But you _are_ scared.”

Severus watches his own Potter go for a moment. It seems the accusation of jealousy hit home. And why not? For someone who was thought to be a Squib—

Severus straightens his spine. And someone who grew up around Lily, who suffered from her own sister’s poisonous jealousy. Of course Lily would fear that one of her own children would be jealous of the others possessing more magic, when Petunia had been, and desperate to prevent that dynamic at any cost.

Of course the Potter would be sensitive to such accusations.

 _Another thing we need to work on,_ Severus decides, and takes great pleasure to stepping around the corner and assigning one insufferable Gryffindor detention for being out after curfew.

_Dragons and Healers_

“I think you should not be so sensitive to accusations of jealousy.”

Harry breathes in and focuses on the cauldron in front of him. He doesn’t want to spend as much time these days with Snape; he thinks he knows as much about Potions as he needs to impress his parents and pass his OWL’s with an Exceeds Expectations. But Snape keeps insisting on setting up appointments to brew and expecting Harry to be there.

So far, Harry has been there. He knows that attempting to sidestep Snape’s weirdness will end up with him spending more time in detentions.

“Why are you sensitive?”

“Because everyone believes it,” Harry says, drawing back his stirring rod and tapping it carefully against the cauldron’s rim.

“I would not.”

“With respect, sir, you’re not a member of my family.”

“And why would they believe it? It seems as if your youngest brother is—adequate in having a brain of his own.”

Harry keeps his face down, so Snape won’t see how he smiles at that grudging praise of Romulus. “Maybe my siblings won’t. But you saw how Sol acted, as though that was the thing that made the most sense. And my parents say they don’t _want_ to believe it, but they’re always talking about how I must be jealous of my siblings’ powerful magic.”

“Your magic is not so much less than theirs.”

“Not the spells I cast, sir. But the strength I was born with? That’s what made them think I would be a Squib.”

“You cannot simply _grow_ your magic by practicing with it more. Whoever tested you in the first place must have been mistaken.”

Harry draws a breath for a moment, taking and holding it—that moment when someone _else_ believed he wasn’t jealous of his siblings. Then he shakes his head. “I want to say that, sir, but I can’t know for sure. Remus seems pretty certain that the Healer didn’t make a mistake.”

“Remus Lupin is a fool.”

Harry smiles at his cauldron again as he picks up the stirring rod, not because he likes hearing Remus called a fool but because it’s _different_.

“We will work on the accusations of jealousy.”

Snape sounds serious enough that Harry looks up. “How, sir?”

“Simple enough. I will speak harsh words and you will learn how not to react to them.”

Harry snorts before he can stop himself, even though it might earn him a detention full of significantly less learning than this lesson. “And you won’t enjoy the opportunity to humiliate a Potter at all, sir.”

“I will not.”

The words are grave in a way that seems impossible. Harry might be different from his siblings in a lot of ways, but he is still the son of someone who bullied Snape and someone who refused his friendship.

Their eyes hold for a moment before Harry looks down and nods.

*

Harry settles back in the stands. Sol didn’t manage to get past the Age Line, after all, even if Father did owl him an artifact from the Potter vaults, and he’s been sulking ever since. And he seems to think that Harry had something to do with his failure, even though Harry didn’t owl their parents about Sol’s stupid plan.

_Romulus might have, though._

So now the school is sitting in the stands around the Quidditch pitch, watching the dragons for the First Task crouch over their nests, roaring. Huge partitions surround them to separate them from each other, but shift and flash so that the audience can see through them. Harry glances at the tent where Viktor Krum, Fleur Delacour, and Cedric Diggory are choosing who goes after which dragon.

_Are they all mental? I wouldn’t want to do this even if I was of age and defeating a dragon would show I really couldn’t be a Squib._

Harry frowns. He sent an owl to St. Mungo’s last week asking about the Healer who performed the test on him when he was a baby, and he hasn’t heard back yet. That’s kind of odd, now that he thinks about it. If they lost the records or had to talk to his parents instead, they would tell him that. Or they would have told Mum and Dad, and they would have immediately owled Harry.

He’ll have to send them another message.

Before he can pursue it further, Krum walks out of the tent and towards the Hungarian Horntail. The dragon lowers her head and hisses at him. Smoke curls up from her nostrils. Krum is holding his wand and doesn’t look nervous, but Harry has noticed that he never looks much of anything.

Krum stands in front of the dragon for long seconds, and then he runs towards her. She screeches and ducks her head. A blast of fire rushes straight at Krum.

He’s already casting, some spell that speeds forwards and hits the dragon in the eye. Harry leans forwards, interested. _The Conjunctivitis Curse._ He’s heard of it, and that it’s good against dragons, but he’s never had reason to cast it. He wonders if he could do that, if some insane twist of fate had placed him in the Tournament.

The dragon screams, throwing back her head. Harry doesn’t listen to the inane excited commentary from Ludo Bagman, but watches as the dragon stomps back and forth, screeching. She crushes several of the eggs before Krum manages to retrieve the golden one that’s supposed to be the goal of all the Champions. Harry shakes his head. He already knows that Krum is going to lose points for that.

Sure enough, he does, although Karkaroff tries to award him full points anyway.

Delacour does a little better, whirling in a dance to distract her dragon, a Chinese Fireball, and then hurling flames of her own at it. The Chinese Fireball rears off her nest, her wings beating and her jaws snapping as she tries to catch Delacour’s conjured fire, which she seems to think is another, small dragon. Delacour speeds in remarkably fast, grabs the golden egg, and darts out of reach.

The applause is sincere from everyone except Karkaroff, who gives Delacour low points. Harry rolls his eyes. _Imagine letting school pride of that sort rule your life._

But Karkaroff is a respected adult wizard, respected enough anyway to become Headmaster of Durmstrang. Harry wonders what he would have to do to receive respect like that.

Cedric comes walking out then, waving and smiling to the cheers of the crowd. Harry sits up. He thinks Cedric was an utter fool to put his name in the Goblet, but he still hopes that he does well. He’s the only one of the Champions Harry knows at all.

He happens to catch his brothers’ eyes down the stand. Sol is sulking. He eyes Harry and mouths something, but Harry turns his head away and doesn’t look back. If Sol thinks it’s stupid that Hogwarts is represented by a Hufflepuff, that’s not Harry’s fault.

Cedric’s technique is the most innovative; he Transfigures a rock into a bounding, barking golden retriever that reminds Harry of Sirius in enthusiasm, if not looks. Harry admires his wand movements and again wonders if he could do that. Cedric ends up with the mother dragon, a Swedish Short-Snout, smashing a few eggs as she tries to go after the dog, but it’s nowhere near the number Krum smashed.

Harry applauds as Cedric finishes and stumbles back to the tent so that Madam Pomfrey can heal his burns, then stands up. He finds himself close to Sol and Romulus in the press of the crowd, and Sol glares at him.

“It didn’t look very difficult,” he mutters. “They all survived, even.”

Harry stares at his brother in utter silence, while Sol flushes harder and harder and Romulus looks on in concern.

“If you think that was easy, you know nothing about dragons or how much effort those spells took,” Harry says finally, and strides down the stands towards the gathering of Hufflepuffs around Cedric.

“You’re just jealous! Squib!”

Harry rolls his eyes enormously, and doesn’t turn around.

*

Severus finds the Potter leaning against the wall of the corridor, contemplating the letter in his hands with a small frown. He doesn’t glance up when Severus looms over him. Severus tries to see the handwriting on the letter, but it’s small and cramped even by the standards of someone who makes his living reading ridiculous handwriting.

“What is that, Potter?”

“Something that I have to ponder, sir,” Potter says, and sticks the letter in his bag, still frowning. He looks up. “Was there something you needed, sir?”

Severus says nothing for long seconds, studying Potter, while Potter stares past him, so abstracted that he doesn’t react to the stare defensively, the way he normally would. His mouth is set in a grim line, his fingers tapping the side of his thigh.

Even now, he is so closed-off, despite the fact that Severus realizes he knows Potter better than anyone else in the world. He doesn’t yield his secrets; he doesn’t volunteer them; he doesn’t give in to the camaraderie between them the way Severus knows most students would.

It reminds him of no one so much as himself.

“What are you doing here?” Severus knows his voice is too sudden, too harsh. That doesn’t matter. It abruptly infuriates him that the Potter is standing in an out-of-the way corridor, thinking, not showing anyone the letter and discussing what to do with it, why it troubles him, and not showing off the magic that he’s learned.

“Sir?” Potter turns his head to stare at him.

“Is there something so incriminating in that letter that you cannot read it in the Hufflepuff common room?” Severus barks, and then winces at himself.

“Not really incriminating,” Potter says, with a shake of his head. “But thank you for reminding me it will be curfew soon, sir.” He steps around Severus and walks towards the stairs that will lead him down.

Severus turns and catches his arm. Potter promptly draws himself up and to the side in a particular way Severus recognizes. He lets Potter’s arm go, honestly shocked. Potter is reacting like a warrior about to enter a duel.

“Has someone been attacking you?” Severus asks the question as a substitute for the one he cannot ask. _Why are you subjecting_ me _to this treatment?_

“No, sir. Of course not.” Potter shifts back, and now he just looks like an ordinary student, pale and confused. “Is something wrong?”

Severus has a dozen things to say, and none of them will help. Potter is behaving _normally_ ; that cold guardedness is something Severus has not only seen in him before this, he’s approved of it. For him to suddenly feel shut out by it is childish.

“No, Potter. Go to your common room.”

Potter nods, and turns away.

_Fourth Year_

Harry thinks about the response he received from St. Mungo’s for months.

He even thinks about it during Christmas, when he’s home with the tree and the pile of gifts that Mum and Dad always set up, and all three of his siblings, and Sirius playing pranks on Remus and Remus chasing him around the room. Most of the time, Harry doesn’t think about things like that just because he can’t bloody _concentrate_.

But now, he has to.

He would have understood if the Healers had sent him some magically complicated theoretical explanation he couldn’t grasp. He could have researched that until he understood the medical magic terms.

He would have understood if the Healers had directed him to his parents instead. Healers don’t always release information about underage patients, even to those underage patients themselves.

But for them to just say that they had no record of the test that said he was nearly a Squib being performed at all...

Harry doesn’t understand.

*

“ _I_ would have picked Mum or Dad. I can’t believe it was Delacour’s little sister and the girls Diggory and Krum are dating!”

Harry rolls his eyes as he walks past the staircase where Sol stands declaiming. They’ve just come from watching the Second Task, which for Harry was an hour of staring at grey water and wondering again about the Healers’ letter. Sol seems angry that the rescues weren’t more dramatic, or something.

“Harry!”

Harry turns around, a bit interested. It’s rare that Sol wants to talk to him in public. He does come talk to him in private, and Romulus doesn’t have the same problem. “Yes, Sol?”

“Aren’t you ashamed that someone from your House chose to rescue his _girlfriend_?”

“Why would rescuing your parents be more interesting?”

Sol, who’s taken a step towards the edge of the stair he’s on and then posed in place, stops now. He’s not posed. He just seems baffled. “What?”

“Why would rescuing parents be more important?” Harry repeats. “I heard you say you’d rescue Mum or Dad. Why is that better than Cedric rescuing the girl he attended the Yule Ball with?” He’s so glad that he went home to get out of that one, and that Sol and Romulus are both too young to attend. It sounds like it was the most awkward evening in the history of Hogwarts.

“Because—because it would show that we could _do_ things for once! That we don’t have to have them rescue us!”

“Oh,” Harry says. He considers it, then shrugs a little. That’s a better reason than he thought his brother would have. “Carry on, then,” he says, and turns away, his mind already turning back to the Healers’ letter. He _still_ hasn’t decided what he’s going to do about it.

In some ways, things would have been simpler if the Healers _had_ contacted his parents and told them about the request. Then Harry would have been easily able to make the choice to confront them.

As it was, he’s left with the depressing choice of assuming they lied or assuming they were concealing something even _worse_.

“Harry! I want to know something!”

Harry glances over his shoulder. “What?”

Sol takes a step down the stairs towards him. “Why didn’t _you_ try to enter the Tournament?”

Harry blinks. They’ve got an audience now, third-year Gryffindors and first-years, Sol and Romulus’s friends, and a few passing Hufflepuffs who turn around to listen. Harry supposes they want to hear what he’ll say about Cedric.

In fact, what Harry is going to say pleases nobody, but he sort of thought that it wouldn’t. He says, “Because I’m not an idiot,” and then continues walking down to the common room.

*

_Harry, I do wish that you would not call your brother an idiot._

This time, the Potter was carrying the letter he had spent the day brooding on with him, and left it to one side on the workbench where Severus could see it. He reads it, thinking that the handwriting is Lily’s and the sentiments expressed are too timid, too weary to be hers. Then he turns around.

“Does your mother try to arbitrate every dispute between you and your brother?”

Potter finishes sifting the powdered Abraxan hair into the cauldron before he looks up. “She mostly doesn’t want me to be jealous of him. Of any of them, really.”

“Why is she so afraid of your jealousy?” The Lily Severus knew was afraid of nothing.

“I don’t know for sure, sir.”

Severus narrows his eyes. He has learned to read those signals. “Use that brain you were born with and tell me what you _suspect_ , Mr. Potter.”

Potter stares at him again, probably for the compliment, but says obediently, “It really hurt Mum when her sister turned her back on her, sir. They had some kind of confrontation when I was three or so. Mum came back from that confrontation in tears. That was when she started talking about how jealousy was poison and no one should ever be jealous of someone else.”

“And she is so convinced that _you_ have something to be jealous of?”

“Of course.” Potter looks more and more puzzled, which is at least different from the state of brooding he was in before. That is enough for Severus. “I’m the one with less powerful magic. Why wouldn’t I be jealous of my siblings? That’s the way she thinks of it.”

“A stupid way to think of it,” Severus says, and makes sure that Potter sees his sneer.

“I don’t know,” Potter says, and turns back to the cauldron. He’s just in time to add the next pinch of mint after the rising puff of steam that signals the potion is halfway through the brewing process. “I mean, she doesn’t know anything about the brewing I can do or the powerful spells I can cast. So to her, I’m just kind of an average student, sir.”

Severus turns to lean against the table. “I thought you had stopped that nonsense of trying to acquire only Acceptable marks in other classes.”

“Acceptable is what I just naturally fall into unless I really work at it, sir.”

“Bollocks,” Severus says, and has the pleasure of watching Potter turn to look at him with wide eyes, while his hands keep up the motion of adding plants to the potion. “Listen to me. You are perfectly capable of focused intelligence when studying subjects as diverse as Potions, Transfiguration, and Charms. I would appreciate if you did _not_ insult me by pretending that you are an average student.”

Potter slowly shakes his head. “I think you’re having the same blindness problem my mother is, sir, just in a different direction.” Then he turns away, as if to shield himself from the blast of Severus’s wrath.

But Severus feels nothing except vindictive glee. He is past the barriers that were keeping him from understanding Potter earlier this year. He would rather be there than shut out for all the best Potter-hating reasons in the world.

“I _know_ what you are truly capable of.”

“In one subject, sir. Being good at brewing doesn’t translate to being good at Defense or Astronomy or Herbology.”

Now Potter is the one who looks as though the floor has had a small earthquake underneath him and he doesn’t know what to do with the new position of the furniture. Good. Severus is more than happy to share the uncertainty. He steps forwards and looks down his nose at Potter, right now grateful for the length.

“You are holding back because you want to surprise and impress your parents. But as more years pass, you are less sure that they will be impressed by how you have concealed it for so long.”

Potter actually falls back a step, and flicks a Stasis Charm at the cauldron. “Sir, it’s illegal for you to use Legilimency against me.”

“This is called reading common knowledge.” Severus extends a hand that Potter watches like it’s an adder. “I know your ambitions, and I know that you originally planned to reveal your skills to your parents as soon as you mastered a few charms. Then it became about mastering Potions. Then it became about other things. Why do you wait now?”

Potter hesitates long enough to make Severus think his gambit hasn’t worked and he’s going to keep his secrets. Then he shakes his head a little and murmurs, “Because it was about contesting the declaration a Healer made after I was born that I don’t have much more magic than a Squib.”

“I knew that as well.” With effort, Severus keeps his voice level. “Is it not now?”

Potter hesitates another good, long time. Then he says, “I wrote to St. Mungo’s to ask about the Healer who gave that test. I thought they would probably tell my parents I wrote to them, and that would force things out into the open. But instead, they wrote back and said that test had never been done.”

Severus stares at him. Then he says, “But your parents and Lupin—”

“Were sure of it, yes, sir. Even Sirius thinks it happened. And it’s not like I could remember one way or the other, I was too young, and my siblings weren’t born yet.” Potter stares at the floor with a pensive frown. “I’ve been debating how to handle it. I can’t just go to hospital and demand answers. They won’t give them to me. And if I speak to my parents...”

“They’ll believe that you’re jealous of your siblings and attempting to prove that you have more magic when it’s not true.” Severus rubs the back of his hand across his mouth. He’s actually never seen or contemplated a situation like this. “Damn.”

Potter nods. “In a way, it _ought_ to be simple. I tell my parents, they say the test happened, I show them the Healers’ letter. But I—” He stops.

“Yes?” Severus prods.

Potter looks aside. “I want them to believe me,” he whispers. “I want them to be proud of me. I don’t want them to say I wrote that letter.”

Severus holds back the immediate impulse he has to snap. He could guess that that is what will happen. James Potter is simply not a deep thinker, and Lily is paralyzed by fear of what Potter’s jealousy might make him think of his siblings. They might _say_ they believed him, but the doubts would remain there, and sink deep, and perhaps never again be voiced while they haunted everyone involved,

From Potter’s eyes, he knows all this. Severus would think him uncannily prescient, but perhaps he simply knows his family.

“I am—relived that you trusted me with your secret,” Severus says, after trying to choose among several words that might offend Potter. “And there is an easy way that you did not think of.”

Potter lifts his head. “What, sir?”

“St. Mungo’s is unlikely to release the records by owl or to you directly, you are right,” Severus says. “You probably only know as much as you did because they will confirm the _existence_ of a record, or its non-existence. But if an adult posing as your father accompanied you to hospital...”

Potter closes his eyes tightly. “Thank you, sir.”

And Severus feels the rush of savage triumph that he once only used to feel when Slytherin House earned the Cup.

_He trusts me more than his family. I have his trust._

It should not be such a large thing. But it is.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story will now be eight parts long; I didn't anticipate the events in the summer between Harry's fourth and fifth years taking so long.

_Visit to St. Mungo’s_

In the end, Severus can only get some of James Potter’s hair by waiting until the Potters come to Hogwarts to watch the Third Task. Apparently Potter wants to see what kind of “top talent” the Champions have, in case they want to be Aurors someday, and Lily...

Lily accompanies her husband. It is easier for Severus to say it than it used to be. He supposes that fifteen years of reality can pound their way even into his skull.

He cuts the hair from Potter’s head using a mild charm, and enjoys the befuddled look on Potter’s face as he turns around and waves his hand behind his neck for a moment. But then he turns back to the cheering and the enjoyment.

Krum wins the Tournament, as Severus suspected he would from his skill at offensive magic. Diggory comes in second, and he’s bleeding from an Acromantula bite that makes Poppy shriek and immediately take him to the hospital wing.

Delacour does not come out of the maze alive. She encountered some other venomous creature and her body is entirely green by the time the Aurors pull it out. Madame Maxine is as pale as curd, and the Delacour family is keening without words.

Severus turns away, sickened.

*

“What are we going to do if the Healers ask my father something about this and he doesn’t remember the visit, sir? And what happens if we run into someone there that my dad knows but you don’t?”

Snape shakes his head and takes a vial from his pocket, turning it around so that Harry can peer at the white-flecked green potion inside. “Tell me what this is, Potter. And that will tell you part of the answer.”

Harry feels his eyes widen. “Memory Replication, sir? You’ll make him think that he’s there?”

“Yes, and even speak normally about it with your—mother.” There’s always that kind of pause before Professor Snape talks about Harry’s mum, even though Harry only started noticing it when he really listened for it. “That will spare you some of the pain of the revelation.”

Harry pauses himself. In all his life, no one has done something like that for him. His parents and Remus and Sirius love him, he knows, but their love is mingled with pity. They’re uncomfortable with him the way that Harry has sometimes seen Muggles act around people in wheelchairs, the times Mum has taken him and his siblings into the Muggle world.

Snape just goes ahead and does things.

“Thank you, sir,” Harry says, and watches as Snape puts the hair in the Polyjuice Potion and changes into his father. It’s odd seeing his muscles ripple and flow and his skin act like it’s going to drip down the sides of his face, but Harry has seen odder things after his years of learning about Potions. Snape takes a small mirror from his pocket and checks on the change, then nods.

“And if we meet someone he supposedly knows?” Snape takes a step back and holds his hand out to Harry. He Apparated to just outside Lion’s Door, and Harry met him there. “I shall pretend not to know them in return. We can let your father sort out any misunderstandings.”

Harry looks at him critically as he takes his hand. “You would kind of like causing him confusion, wouldn’t you.”

“That is not a question, and therefore I shall not be answering it,” Snape says in Dad’s voice, and Apparates.

*

“Yes, of course, Mr. Potter. Right this way.”

Severus manages to keep from grimacing and ruining the charade as he trails after the mediwitch into the depths of St. Mungo’s. The corridors are filled with the smells of brewing potions, and the noise of hacking coughs, and the scents of sickness that remind Severus far too much of his childhood.

But the steady way that Potter walks beside him is new. Severus finds himself watching the way that Potter studies the people they pass, as if looking for signs of the diseases they might bear inside.

_He has a capacious mind, curiosity, and natural talent. How could his parents have missed it?_

“The Healer who supposedly conducted this test, Healer Edson? This is him,” says the mediwitch, and shoots a soft smile at the Potter before she retreats. Potter doesn’t seem to notice, but then, he never does, although Severus has noticed a few of the Hufflepuff girls casting him longing looks. In this case, he’s too busy shaking the hand of the man who supposedly condemned him to a lifetime of disappointment and pity.

 _I would prefer it if he does not notice,_ Severus admits to himself, and shakes the Healer’s hand in turn.

“Yes, I saw your request when they brought it to me,” says Edson, a frank-looking man with long brown hair bound out of the way at the back of his neck. He smiles at Harry and sits down behind his desk. “I can only tell you that I never did a test on you. I would have remembered. There are so few babies I test who have lower than average magic. They’re either average or Squibs. There’s honestly not a lot of ground in between.”

“Could there have been a mistake with the name?” Severus asks. He hates that his voice sounds like James Potter’s, but he does enjoy the thought of feeding the main the Memory Replication potion. “A Healer with a name like yours who performed the test?”

“No,” Edson says, shaking his head. “I’ve looked through all the records for a year after Mr. Potter’s birth, and there’s nothing. He was never here.”

“Which doesn’t make a lot of sense,” Potter whispers.

“I suppose you can’t try talking to the person who originally brought him?” Edson asks. “Perhaps they were the one who made the mistake. Brought him for some other test and thought the results were for the magical strength test, like.”

“I thought my friend Remus Lupin brought him,” Severus says, barely able to change the way the sentence _wanted_ to emerge so that it sounds natural for James Potter.

Edson raises his eyebrows. “You don’t know?”

“Well, of course I thought I knew…” Severus lets the words trail off. He never thought to ask the Potter which member of his family or his family’s friends had supposedly brought him to hospital. He turns to Potter.

Who has his eyes closed, the way he does when he’s seeking the mental answer to some question Severus has asked him. Severus shakes his head at Edson when the Healer opens his mouth. Edson subsides, watching Potter.

Potter finally opens his eyes and whispers, “I don’t think you ever told me. I was sure I—I thought it was Remus, too.”

“Then it seems that you have a mystery greater than just what that test said to solve,” Edson begins.

“Could I take the test again? I mean, can you perform it a second time on someone? Or on someone who’s a teenager if they aren’t a baby?”

Severus would not have asked that question, but then, he has never had children and knows very little about the kinds of tests that magical families perform at that age. His mother certainly never bothered with them.

Edson smiles kindly at Potter. “I’m afraid that particular test can’t be performed on someone above a certain age, no. But I can say that if you’re using your wand on a regular basis, and performing acceptably in your classes, then there’s no reason to think that you’re anywhere near a Squib.”

Potter looks down, his eyes shuttered. Severus knows why. The words of one Healer won’t convince his parents. They put so much faith in the test that Potter apparently never took that they will want something like it.

Potter only looks up and nods, though. “Thank you anyway, sir.”

 

_Darkness_

“Mum, who was the person who took me to St. Mungo’s to get the test done? You know, the one that proved I was almost a Squib?”

Mum turns and looks at Harry with a shocked expression. Harry only watches her back. He knows that Dad hasn’t approached her yet. Professor Snape hasn’t had the chance to give Dad the false memory of his visit to hospital in a way that would appear natural, and Professor Snape won’t risk Dad figuring it out.

But Harry is burning enough that he wants to ask the question. Now that he thinks about it, he can’t believe that he missed such a vital part of his own mythology. His whole life has been influenced by that stupid test they supposedly gave him at St. Mungo’s. How could he never have asked _who_ took him?

“I—well, of course.” Mum pauses to think back. “We didn’t go, it was still during the war and we were fighting with the Order of the Phoenix—oh! It was Peter. That’s right. Peter.”

Harry feels as though someone has lit a candle inside him. Peter Pettigrew, who has avoided Harry all his life, barely speaking two words to him when he comes over to dinner, as if he has done something _wrong_.

At the very least, he’s lied.

“Harry? Harry!”

Harry is already moving. He runs outside Lion’s Door and over the garden, to the small owlery that stands at the far edge. There’s not nearly as much use for the owls during the summer and they wave their wings excitedly when they see him. Harry finds Asphodel, his own white owl, and strokes her breast for a second before he focuses straight on her.

“No letter, girl. Just go find Peter Pettigrew and tell him that I want to see him. Can you do that?”

Asphodel seems a little insulted by both the lack of a letter and the questioning of her capabilities, but she bobs her head and launches herself into the air. Harry watches her fade out of sight before he turns around to find his mother standing at his shoulder.

“Harry? What is this all about?”

“I want you to hear it from Peter,” Harry says, and turns around with his arms folded. He’s going to lean on the side of the owlery until Asphodel gets back, or until Peter Apparates in. Mum tries to say a few more words to him, but Harry ignores her.

She lets him. That says more about their relationship than anything else does.

*

Severus looks up. He would recognize the Potter’s owl anywhere. She spirals down into the middle of a meeting between Peter Pettigrew and the gamekeeper, Rubeus Hagrid. Hagrid wants to retire soon and explore the world, as he never got to do when he was a young man. Pettigrew is preparing to take his place.

Severus narrows his eyes as he watches the owl land on Pettigrew’s shoulder and sharply nip his ear. He reaches up as if to brush her away, but she hangs on and flaps her wings hard. Pettigrew turns to study her, then visibly says something to Hagrid that makes the man nod, amiable as he always is. Pettigrew turns and walks towards the far side of the Hogwarts grounds, the owl flying ahead of him.

Severus stands and tucks away the last clump of herbs he came to the edge of the Forbidden Forest to gather. There is no doubt in his mind that the Potter has somehow discovered who took him to St. Mungo’s.

Which means that certain secrets are about to come out. And Severus would not miss them for a solid gold cauldron.

He walks parallel to Pettigrew and Apparates the moment the anti-Apparition spells give out behind the massive trees.

*

Harry straightens up. Peter is walking towards the garden, Asphodel circling proudly around his head. And behind him comes Professor Snape. Harry wonders how in the world he found out, but he dismisses it. The point is that he’s here now.

Some part of Harry relaxes at the thought that Professor Snape is going to be here, but he dismisses that, too. He’s not going to be weak. He’s not going to cower. That’s never got him the results he wanted.

He turns around and heads towards Peter. Peter cringes harder than ever. Sometimes Harry wonders if Peter spends a lot of time in his rat form when he’s not with Harry’s family. It sure looks like a lot of the animal gets into his behavior.

“H-Harry.” Peter swallows. “Asphodel insisted that I had to come.” He watches as Asphodel lands on Harry’s shoulder and starts to preen his hair. “What is this all about?”

“I find myself curious about that, as well.” Professor Snape folds his arms and leans on the side of the fence around the garden. Peter jumps and whirls and squeaks. Harry feels a smile tug at the side of his lips despite himself. How could Peter not _notice_ someone walking behind him like that?

Professor Snape catches Harry’s eyes and rolls his own. Harry squashes the smile before it can go and is about to tell Peter when Dad’s voice says from behind him, “We all want to know that.”

Mum must have Flooed Dad at the Ministry to get him to come home. They’re both standing behind him now, and Dad is frowning at Professor Snape. Harry says simply, “I owled the Healers about the test they did that proved I was almost a Squib, and they said they didn’t have any records of a test like that. And then Mum said that Peter was the one who took me to get it.” He glances at Peter. “What happened?”

Peter opens his mouth and then turns around like he’s going to run. He catches sight of Snape’s face, though, and shrinks backwards. But he gulps and gulps and apparently can’t speak.

“Peter?” Dad looks cautious, but he’s staring more at Peter than Harry. “What is it? I’d like to know what happened, too. Did they lose the record?” But his hand is resting on his wand. Harry feels the vindication break like a star in his chest.

Peter abruptly falls to his knees and begins to weep. Mum takes a step forwards as if she’s going to comfort him, but Dad puts a hand on her arm and shakes his head. Professor Snape, meanwhile, is watching Harry like Peter has ceased to exist. Harry doesn’t know why, when Peter is the one making the spectacle, but apparently that’s the way it is.

Peter raises his head and uses the back of his hand to wipe his nose, sniffling over and over. Harry feels his lip curl, but manages to hold his face calm. Peter is disgusting, but it’s not like he hasn’t done things like this before.

“It was revenge,” Peter whispers. “You were—you were so happy, and you always—you always acted like your son was going to be this great and powerful and wizard and I couldn’t—you didn’t even _notice_ that I almost joined the Death Eaters!” Peter bursts out, lifting his head and staring more at Mum and Dad than Harry. “I almost got the Dark Mark because I was so tired of being ignored, and you didn’t bloody _notice_!”

“That only proves how stupid you are, Pettigrew,” Snape drawls, although he looks as shocked as Harry feels. The next instant, of course, the shock is gone, and Snape is simply studying Pettigrew the way he would a Hufflepuff who’s upset the cauldron for a fifth time. “The Dark Lord could have offered you noting but use.”

“At least someone would have noticed me! At least someone would have used me!” Peter is shouting now, his face turning redder and redder. “You made Sirius Harry’s godfather, and you were already pregnant again and talking about making Remus the second child’s godfather, and _I_ asked, and you just stared at me blankly! You started disregarding me all the time when you got married, James! You _laughed_ at me when my engagement ended! You said that no Rookwood would want to marry someone like me!”

“Peter, I—that was years ago—” Dad sounds stunned.

“But I didn’t want to join the Death Eaters,” Peter goes ranting on. “I already knew that V-Voldemort was going to lose. So I decided I could do this thing when you asked me to take Harry to the Healers for his test. I could come back and say that he was a Squib. I went to a private Healer and paid him to say that and plant some evidence the test was done at St. Mungo’s by someone else.” He turns to Harry now, his hands outstretched as though he’s pleading for some kind of forgiveness. “The test _did_ say that you were on the low side of average. So it wasn’t all that different, right? You aren’t a Squib, but you’ll never be a powerful wizard. I could tell that already. I have magic sensitivity,” he adds, with a proud sidelong glance at Mum and Dad. “So it wasn’t such a lie.”

Harry just stands there and stares at Peter as he breaks down in tears. So that’s it. It was revenge, stretching the truth or changing it so that it was a word Mum and Dad didn’t want to hear. _Squib_.

Not a lie. Not completely. Harry does still have to work harder than anyone else he knows at the spells and he’d have to work harder at making Mum and Dad happy, too, even if they had never thought he was a Squib.

A petty, cowardly revenge, just like Peter’s reasons for doing it in the first place.

Mum and Dad are shouting at Peter now, who’s wailing how sorry he is. Harry stands there and thinks. He glances to the side, at the only other silent person in the garden.

Professor Snape has the oddest expression on his face. It’s like he’s bracing for something. Harry wonders for what. Dad is too preoccupied with Peter to turn around and shout at Snape for being on his property.

Harry raises his eyebrows at Professor Snape and mouths, “ _What_?” Snape’s eyes move from him to his parents and back again.

 _Oh._ Of course. Professor Snape did want to be here when Harry announced that he can actually do more powerful spells than they thought. Harry supposes he might as well do that now. Maybe it will make Mum and Dad less angry at Peter—which isn’t actually something Harry _wants_ to happen, but he does want the focus on him, not their friend. Peter deserves to be ignored the way he got so upset about being.

Harry draws his wand and holds it loosely at his side. Professor Snape leans forwards like he’s actually going to descend on Harry like a hawk on its prey. Harry says, not shouting but loudly enough to be heard, “ _Protego_.”

The Shield Charm whirls up in front of him, a perfect, shimmering silvery half-circle. Harry tilts his head and watches as his Mum turns towards him. Her jaw falls open.

Dad is still shouting at Peter, but Mum tugs on his arm until he’s quiet. Then he turns around, and he looks as though someone hit him in the face with a battering ram.

Harry smiles at them.

*

Severus did not know how sweet this moment would be.

He has never seen such shock on his rival’s face. James Potter was surprised sometimes, but he would shrug it off in the next instant, laugh and pretend he had _meant_ to do something like that all along, or _meant_ to stumble over thin air into a prank of his friends’ making. He never displayed shock.

And Lily…

Severus entertained some fantasies that his old friend merely underestimated her oldest child, not really believing he _couldn’t_ do spells this powerful but simply wanting to help Harry accept the reality. But now he knows. She took his supposed Squibhood to heart, probably because it would have aided the poisonous whispers that said James Potter should never have married a Mudblood. And Petunia…

She would have feared Harry would turn out like Petunia.

Severus thought that before, but he didn’t grasp it, because he knows the real Harry Potter, and someone more unlike Petunia Evans never breathed. Harry has taken all that ambition that could have curdled into jealousy and trained it into relentless intelligence, phenomenal skill, humbling memory.

Instead, as he watches James and Lily step slowly towards the child they have disregarded, Severus is the one who feels himself choking on jealousy.

_If he tells them everything now, if he turns away from me to accept their adulation—_

As if he hears the thought, although Severus has taught him nothing of Legilimency, Harry turns towards him.

He catches Severus’s eye and shakes his head once. It’s a silent promise and nothing more than that, but Severus still finds himself relaxing. He watches as Lily embraces Harry and James demands, “How?”

“I’ve been practicing for years and years,” Harry says calmly, patting his mother’s back with one hand. “I know I’m not very powerful, I knew that even before Peter said it, but with enough practice, I could master those spells. I can do other things, too,” he adds, and touches his wand to his forehead.

When he speaks the incantation of the Disillusionment Charm, he disappears entirely from sight, and Severus rejoices in the glassy look in James Potter’s eyes because he _understands_ it. There are adult wizards who cannot master that charm. It might have taken Harry years of work, but he has still arrived at a level far above that of many students in his year.

“I’m sorry, Harry,” Lily is whispering. “I’m sorry, baby. That I never paid attention.”

Harry lifts his head from her shoulder and turns to glance at Severus again. Severus understands the message flung in silence.

_If Lily really cared for him, she would have said she loved him before now. Not withheld her approval until she saw he had power._

Something clenched in Severus unravels. Yes. He is still the one who saw the potential in Harry before everyone else. Even Minerva and Pomona pitied Harry and thought that he was studious but not capable of great magic.

_I know. I realize. He is not going to turn away from me now._

_I still have his trust._


	6. Chapter 6

_Ravenclaw Girls and Hufflepuff Boys_

“Can I ask you something, Harry?”

Harry blinks over the edge of his book. Since he came back to Hogwarts as an officially-announced “wizard on the low side of average,” a few more people have talked to him than before, and there was a small article about what Peter did—something he couldn’t be legally punished for, because it wasn’t really a crime. The article only happened because of Dad’s connections in the Ministry and because certain Wizengamot members wanted stricter laws regulating private Healers and used that as an excuse. It wasn’t really about _Harry_.

And Cho Chang is one of the prettiest and most popular girls in Ravenclaw. Harry can’t imagine what she wants with him.

“Sure,” he says, when Chang only stands there with a friendly smile and doesn’t go away or say it was a mistake. “What is it?”

Chang slides into the seat beside him. She’s wearing some kind of delicate perfume that blends flowers and sea salt. Harry finds himself thinking of potions with that scent and wondering what would happen if you altered the proportion of sand dollars in them.

“Cedric says he saw you practicing some really advanced spells in a classroom the other day,” Chang begins, pushing her black hair behind her ears.

“Cedric needs to keep his mouth shut,” Harry mutters. Cedric is a good bloke, but he _promised_ he wouldn’t tell anybody when he saw Harry Transfiguring stone to sand and calling a fire intense enough to burn up the sand. He’s a liar, evidently.

“I think he only wanted to make sure that you get recognized for your real talents, Harry.”

Harry glances at her. She’s leaning forwards a little, smiling. Her eyelashes shade enough of her eyes that it gives her a dreamy look, and Harry wonders if she’s tired or something.

“Well, that’s nice,” he says, and faces his book. Right now, he’s pursuing Astronomy theory for his OWLS even though it’s a class he mostly ignores, because Professor Snape insisted. He acts as though Harry probably getting an Outstanding in Potions wouldn’t be enough for him. He acts like Harry has to do everything or he won’t succeed. But that’s Snape for you. He has no limits to his ambition. “But I don’t really need to be recognized. It’s enough that people have stopped calling me a Squib.”

And that is enough for now, even though Harry didn’t think it would be. His parents’ glances have turned less pitying than worried. They seem to think that Harry will go on blaming them even though they have stopped saying he’s a Squib. They’re anxious to work with him on homework and they owl him all the time and they’re trying to learn what interests him after fifteen years of ignorance.

It’s…nice, in a way. But it’s not what Harry expected.

He thought things would change, they would become the sort of parents they are to Sol and Romulus and Alicia, and they would live happily ever after. But it hasn’t. Mum and Dad are so worried about what they did and about being blamed that it’s tiring to be around them.

And the sort of sad thing is, Harry doesn’t actually _care_ that it’s tiring and uncomfortable to be around them. He somehow grew beyond the need for their approval even as he got it. He’s not devastated that they’re reacting like this. He owls them back every few days, he answers their questions, and he knows…

He knows that they’re not the ones he wants to impress. He’s got his eye on people beyond his family now.

“Harry!”

“What?” Harry turns back to Chang. He honestly didn’t know she was still there. It seems strange to him that anyone would want to sit next to someone while they’re thinking and stare at them.

Then again, Chang’s a Ravenclaw. Harry has seen Ravenclaws doing that to each other in the library. Maybe it’s their way of being friends.

“I want to get to know you,” Chang says, her voice low. She reaches out and lets her hand hover near Harry’s hand. Harry watches it in perplexity. Chang sits back in the end, but her low voice goes on. “I want to—maybe study with you, maybe go to Hogsmeade with you.”

“Why?”

“I like you!”

Harry blinks a little. Then he says, “But we’ve never interacted. How can you like me if you don’t know me?”

Chang honestly appears to be floundering. Harry watches her in more perplexity. He doesn’t know what he did, but sometimes since the article and the revelation of Peter’s treachery it’s like this, he acts ordinary and people act like he’s confusing.

Chang finally takes a deep breath and says, “I—think you’re handsome, and I know that you’re pretty powerful.” She’s blushing now. “I’d like to date you. No, I don’t know you, but I’d like to.” She holds Harry’s eye for a second and then looks down. “Merlin, Harry, I know you’re not in Gryffindor, but you practically force people to act like _they_ are if they want to date you.”

“I’m not powerful.”

That gets him another blink. “But the article in the paper said—”

“Still on the low side of average,” Harry interrupts. “It still takes me a lot of tries to get the spells right. The thing is that I have years of study behind me now and I’ve got a really good memory. I know ways to get the spells right that a lot of people don’t. And there are spells that everyone can do—they depend less on raw power than most people think—it’s just that they’re difficult to work on, so people give up on them instead of learning them properly. Then the dedicated wizards and the lucky ones get them right, and everyone decides it must be about power. Not discipline. It’s all about discipline, Chang. You know how even powerful adult wizards can’t get the Shield Charm right a lot of the time? It’s because they _give up_.”

Chang almost flinches back from him when Harry says those words. Harry tries to calm down. He knows it isn’t her fault. She’s just been lied to all her life like Harry has, and Sol and Romulus have, and lots of other people. They believe that power is everything.

It’s not. It’s finesse and skill and discipline and patience that are everything. That’s what Harry has.

And it’s one reason that things are so uncomfortable with his parents. Mum and Dad have gone from one extreme to the other, thinking that Harry is a Squib and then thinking he’s going to dazzle them all with displays of powerful, extraordinary magic. Harry only knows magic that’s extraordinary for his _age_ , but they’re having trouble accepting that.

In truth, Harry feels a bit sorry for them, and for the people who were trying to gape at him right after that article came out. He even feels sorry for Peter, because his revenge was so shallow. The reliance on power, the belief in it as everything, is shallow, too. The world would be better if people valued things other than raw power.

“I—are you saying that power doesn’t make any difference?” Chang asks cautiously.

“No,” Harry says. “But I’m saying that some people act like it’s destiny, and some people act like it’s a shortcut. The first set think that powerful wizards can do anything they want and no one else can, and the second set get lazy. But the result is the same. People try to do spells, they don’t get them right the first few times, and they give up and decide it’s because they aren’t powerful enough. And the few people who get them right get hailed as powerful, instead of disciplined. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy.”

He cuts off, because Chang is staring at him. “What?” Maybe she’s about to tell him he’s wrong. Harry knows he isn’t, because he’s lived it, but he thinks that people might disagree with him, and he’s prepared to defend his position if he has to.

“You’re—you’re _brilliant_ , Harry,” Chang breathes out. “That’s a lot more attractive than being powerful.”

“Er, thanks? I suppose?” Harry stares at her in bafflement. He was only speaking what he knows is true, not trying to impress anyone.

“ _Please_ come to Hogsmeade with me this weekend.”

There’s a loud thump right behind them, and Harry jumps and turns around. Professor Snape is standing behind them with his arms folded and his gaze drilling into—Chang, to Harry’s utter surprise. He doesn’t think that Snape is supposed to look at anyone who doesn’t have the last name Potter that way.

“Potter,” Snape says without glancing at him, “you have detention this evening that I will trust you not to forget.”

It’s true that he has a Potions lesson scheduled, but Harry didn’t think that Snape was going to use the cover of a detention for it. He sighs a little and turns to face Chang. “Sorry for the interruption,” he says. “But I’m afraid that I’m not going to go on dates this year. Maybe you should ask Cedric? Sometimes he looks at you like he wants to date you. And didn’t you go to the Yule Ball last year?”

Chang jerks back from him. “We _did_ , but we broke up,” she snaps, flinging her hair over her shoulder this time. “You should know something like that.”

“Sorry. I don’t pay much attention to gossip, no matter who’s saying it, Ravenclaws or Hufflepuffs.”

Chang gets up from the library table and storms away. Harry shakes his head. He supposes Cedric knows what he was doing, rescuing her from the bottom of the lake last year, but for once, he agrees with Sol. He wouldn’t have chosen to rescue a girlfriend like that.

_Jealousy_

Harry Potter is not the one who has to worry about jealousy.

Severus saw the Potter sitting at the same library table with Chang and speaking _passionately_ to her, and was incapable of holding himself back when the insistent girl actually invited him on a date. Now he watches Potter from a distance most of the time, when they aren’t actually working on Potions or he isn’t making the Potter revise for Astronomy, which he despises. Severus thinks _Harry_ Potter capable of all Outstanding marks on his OWLS.

Harry thinks he’s ridiculous.

Severus does not care. When Harry is revising or reading to revise or working on potions with him—this time, one of Severus’s experimental brews that could replace the Disillusionment Charm if it advances far enough—he is not paying attention to the girls, and some boys, who are fluttering and sighing at him.

_Are you jealous of schoolgirls and schoolboys?_

Severus brushes off the thought that keeps returning to him, even though he knows the thought is _right_. He is not jealous of fumblings that might take place in darkened alcoves. He is jealous of the passion that Harry showed Chang. Harry should discuss his thoughts with _Severus_. He should explore magical theory with Severus. He should come to Severus when he has questions or wants to study.

So far, Harry’s lack of friends and his dedication to academic pursuits have kept Severus free of that jealousy. But now there are people noticing Harry’s accomplishments. He no longer hides them because he wants to show them to his family first. He showed his parents, and later his siblings, and he has grown beyond the need for their approval.

Severus does not _want_ them to notice. Or rather, he wants them to notice, and then admire from a _distance._

He is the one who discovered what Harry was and kept discovering. He is the one who offered the boy help with Potions and tamed his tongue in his presence. The others should not get the benefit of what he knows.

Part of him knows he is ridiculous to feel that way. The other part of him blesses Harry’s obliviousness and continues to drive away the people who would ask him on dates when they try.

*

“I don’t know why I can’t master the Shield Charm yet.”

Harry rolls his eyes. Sol is already doing better than Harry did the first hundred times he tried. “I told you. Power _helps_ , but it’s the dedication that really matters. Here, do you want to try again?”

“No. I need to rest a little.”

Harry nods and steps back, letting Sol slump down on the chair in the empty classroom and call weakly for water. A house-elf pops in with it and pops back out. Harry would never ask an elf to do something like that for him, but it doesn’t make Sol a bad person that he will. He’s just different.

“How did you do this?” Sol asks, when he’s drunk half the water and poured the other half on his head. “And you’re _still doing it_. Even with all the frantic study that you have to do for your OWLS.”

Harry blinks a little. “I’m not studying as much for the OWLS as some of the others are. I already know some of those things, and—other people care more than I do about me getting Outstanding marks on those tests.” He almost said “Professor Snape,” but he doesn’t think that Sol would like to hear that. Snape still torments Sol. He doesn’t do it with Romulus only because Romulus really tries in his class and doesn’t always try to rely on raw power the way that Sol does most of the time.

“But—you need good marks on the OWLS to get good positions in the Ministry!”

Harry smiles a little. “I’m not going to work for the Ministry.”

“What are you going to do, then?”

Harry considers his brother. Sol is leaning forwards on the chair, and he seems honestly interested. He apologized for calling Harry a Squib when he saw the Shield Charm that Harry could produce over the summer. So Harry decides that he can say this. “I’m going to work as someone advocating for Squibs. Even though they can’t do what I can do, that doesn’t mean they should be denied an education. They can still practice _some_ things. History of Magic and Astronomy and Herbology and Care of Magical Creatures, for instance. They can still see Hogwarts. They could go to school here.”

Sol’s mouth falls slowly open. Then he says, “But if you’re going into politics, then you need to work with the Ministry.”

Harry shakes his head. “It’s advocacy more than politics. I might have to _meet_ with people who work in the Ministry. But I don’t have to have a job there myself. Where would they even put me? There’s no department that handles that kind of thing.” He knows that for certain. He tried to do research on Squibs and the test that condemned him for years, and there’s almost nothing. Everything he _did_ discover related to Healing, not the Ministry.

Sol keeps staring at him. “That’s—really ambitious.”

“I belong in Hufflepuff, not Slytherin.”

“I didn’t mean it in a bad way.” Sol holds up one hand. “I’m just saying that it _is_ really ambitious. Maybe you do need those Outstanding marks on your OWLS. Just so that other people will listen to you.”

Harry tilts his head to the side. “Yes. Maybe that’s a good reason.”

*

Harry is distracted during their next brewing session. Severus keeps an eye on him and watches him nearly make a mistake, but always pull back at the last minute and manage to keep brewing. He can finally stand it no longer. “What has happened?”

“Hmm?” Harry glances up. “Oh, Sol just clarified for me that maybe I do want O’s on my OWLS after all. It’s going to be important to my career.” And he turns back to the experimental potion and carefully sifts in the gold dust that Severus told him to with his mind seemingly focused.

As if he’s made a decision. A decision that Severus isn’t privy to, but his brother evidently _is_.

The brother who called him a Squib last year. The brother who has paid more attention to Harry since it’s been revealed that he isn’t, but who still hasn’t gained as many privileges as Severus has been granted—or _shouldn’t_ have.

Jealousy still tastes like bile. Severus battles it back down. “And what is that career?”

“I’m going to advocate for Squibs to have an education at Hogwarts. There’s plenty they can do. There would have been plenty for me to do even if I had been one. People are just letting prejudice control them and not _looking_.”

Harry’s eyes are aflame. Severus can remember seeing Lily’s eyes like that, but this is different. This is _something he wants to be involved in_.

_Something he should have told me about._

“And were you planning on asking for your mentor’s help?” he asks smoothly, when some minutes have passed and Harry still hasn’t realized that he did anything wrong. “Or did you think that I would never _stoop_ to lend you my advice about advocacy for Squibs?”

Harry stares at him. “I—but why would you want to help me?”

Jealousy is suddenly lit on fire, and it’s much harder to keep back flame than bile. “Excuse me?” Severus asks, and his voice is lower than he likes. But Harry doesn’t back down, only keeps glaring at him. “Why would I _not_ want to help you? What have I done with Potions and your study habits, if not help you?”

Harry shakes his head a little. “Sir, you’ve been helpful to me, yes, and I’m glad that you were there to see me reveal my magic to my parents.” His hand toys with a stirring rod, but doesn’t put it in the potion. There’s a discipline about Harry even when he’s distracted that Severus can’t help but admire. “But I know that you only started helping me in the first place to get revenge on my father. Maybe even my mother, I don’t know. I was actually surprised that you kept helping me this year. You’ve had your revenge. Why would you want to help me with anything else?”

“Yet you continued this arrangement without asking why?”

“I liked spending time with you, sir. I thought you might stop if I said anything.”

Severus stares at Harry. That makes sense, when he thinks about it. Harry has accepted diminished respect from most of the adults around him. He would find Severus’s behavior in continuing this past the moment of revenge puzzling.

It is understandable. It is also unacceptable.

“I also wish to continue this arrangement,” Severus forces himself to say. “I have—grown accustomed to your presence.”

Harry thinks about that, and then nods. “That makes sense, sir. Can we go on brewing now?”

“I have one more thing to say,” Severus says, and finds himself confronting an intense gaze. He grinds his teeth. “I want you to come to me with your concerns, your problems, your plans. That includes things not directly related to Potions, like your advocacy for Squibs.”

“Er. All right, sir. I don’t have any problem with doing that,” Harry adds, when Severus glares at him. “I just didn’t have any reason to think you’d be interested.”

Severus knows he shouldn’t, knows that it might make Harry start suspecting _exactly_ what he feels, but he can’t help leaning forwards and saying in a low, intense voice, “Everything about you interests me, Mr. Potter.”

Harry’s eyes open wide, and for a second, Severus thinks he will see too much understanding there. But instead, Harry just grants him a dazzling smile and turns back to brewing the potion with no sign of discomfort.

It is important to Severus that Harry feel no discomfort. Otherwise, he might leave, and that is _likewise_ unacceptable.


	7. Chapter 7

_Alicia_

“RAVENCLAW!”

Harry applauds as he watches his little sister take the Hat off her head and run over towards the Ravenclaw table. He’s not surprised at all. He sometimes feels that he doesn’t know Alicia as well as he does Sol and Romulus, since he hasn’t been at home most of the last five years when she was becoming a real person, but he got to know her a lot better this past summer. She’s bookish, like him.

She’s on fire with ambition in a way that he’s not. She’s powerful like Sol and brilliant like Romulus. She’s not very patient. But Harry thinks she’ll thrive in Ravenclaw and learn to calm down a little. At least she isn’t in Gryffindor. That would probably ruin her.

Harry glances up and catches Professor Snape’s eye for a moment. Snape inclines his head. Harry half-smiles. Yes, Snape is going to treat Alicia better, too, because of her House.

Harry does wonder if he’ll have another student for his private lessons soon. Sol is determined to master all the advanced spells that Harry knows, and sometimes Romulus is there, but not always. He’s much more interested in magical theory.

Harry thinks it’s a shame that he’ll only have two years at Hogwarts while Alicia is there. It promises to be interesting.

*

“I want you to teach me, Potter.”

Severus slows and silences his steps. He has been going towards the place that his monitoring spells in the dungeons told him Harry is; he wishes to ask him about the OWL marks he wasn’t privy to. Harry did owl him about his Outstanding in Potions, but Severus will not be content until he knows the others.

He did not expect to hear the arrogant voice of Zacharias Smith. The boy has ignored Harry for five years despite being in the same classes and sleeping in the same bedroom. Severus stands where he can look around the corner but not be seen.

Harry is leaning against the wall, his arms folded and his eyebrows raised. He is growing taller every time Severus looks, and while he will never be strongly-muscled, he has a lithe grace that draws more than Severus’s eye. It may be time to do something about that. Next to Harry stands his sister, glaring. She is more tolerable than Severus expected when she pestered him with questions in her first Potions class.

Smith doesn’t seem to care about the youngest Potter’s glare or Harry’s expression of cool skepticism. He continues, “Your brother was showing off to a few of his Gryffindor friends, and they talked to friends of mine. You’re a good teacher, better than the joke we have for Defense.”

Severus wants to roll his eyes at the tone those words are delivered in, but Smith is correct. Remus Lupin stayed only a year in the Defense post. Since then, Albus has relied on Jasper Merrythought, the grandson of an old Defense professor, who has proven conclusively that he does not have his grandmother’s knowledge.

Albus is a brilliant man, but he needs to look down from the heights sometimes and realize that he has students around him who need _good teachers_ , not mere promise.

“So what?”

Harry’s voice makes a shiver run down Severus’s spine. It is deep and cool, and uncaring. Smith’s facts don’t turn his head. Neither does his sister’s glare. He’s refuting the need to teach someone else simply because they’re in his House, and he’s doing it in a way that makes Severus burn with the impulse to reach out and _touch_ —

He holds himself back, but it’s difficult.

“I want you to teach me, too.”

“We’ve never been friends, Smith. Why should I?”

Smith apparently does not know how to deal with this, any more than he knows how to deal with the messes that he constantly makes in Potions. He blinks and flounders for a moment. Then his face lights up as though he thinks he has the answer. “Because I can make it worth your while, Potter. What do you want? Money? A word in the ears of important people in the Ministry, so that you can have a good job when you graduate? Or—” His eyes linger for a second on Harry’s. “Something else?”

“My brother doesn’t _need_ anything you can offer him!” Alicia Potter yells.

Severus steps forwards then, and intervenes before someone can get sent to the hospital wing, not a remote possibility with the way that Smith has just drawn his wand. “Did I hear you offering to bribe Ministry officials for the sake of a fellow sixth-year, Smith?”

The boy starts and turns to him, his face going pale. “Professor,” he murmurs. “Sorry, I—I mean, I think you misunderstood. I only want Potter to teach me what he knows.” He looks at Harry again.

Those disdainful green eyes haven’t moved an inch. Severus laughs in a wild part of his mind. _I am the only one who can make them soften. I am the only one who can make them shine. I am the only one who has seen that smile._

“If Mr. Potter does not wish to do so, then he does not have to,” Severus says, and savors the way that Smith goes paler. “Walk away, Mr. Smith. And ten points from Hufflepuff for suggesting the bribery of Ministry officials, even in jest.”

“It _was_ just a joke, Professor! I promise!”

“Five points from Hufflepuff for protesting my taking points,” Severus says, and watches in amusement as Smith stomps away. He is going to enjoy taking points from the immature brat for the rest of the year.

“Thanks, Professor,” Alicia Potter says, her hands on her hips as she considered Smith’s back. “He just won’t leave Harry alone. He even tried to say last week that Harry owes him lessons because he’s in his House and he shouldn’t be teaching Gryffindors and Ravenclaws!”

Severus turns to Harry. “Is this true?” Granted, they are only a fortnight into the new school term, but if Harry has had to listen to that rubbish for more than this one encounter…

“Yes, it’s true, sir. Nothing I can’t handle.” Harry gives him a curious look and then darts his eyes to his sister.

That is also true; Severus does not want an audience for this. “If you will excuse us, Miss Potter, I am going to give your brother some lessons in speaking up sooner and dismissing idiots from his sight.”

“He could use those, thanks, Professor!”

 _At least that child appears to have inherited the best parts of her parents’ sunny natures,_ Severus reflects as she bounces away. He glances at Harry. “Come with me.”

*

“You do not have to put up with the likes of Smith bothering you for lessons. You should have come to me the minute he started.”

“It’s honestly not as bad as Alicia made it sound, sir. She thinks that it’s worse than it is.”

Harry watches as Professor Snape turns a little away from the fire and gives him a doubtful look. Well, it’s true. Alicia is protective of him in a way that’s both cute and disturbing. She’s five years younger than Harry. _He_ should be the one who’s protective of _her_ , not the other way around.

But she did tell him the day after her Sorting that she thinks she was wrong all these years not to notice how Mum and Dad treated Harry, and she’s trying to make up for that. And Harry doesn’t know if he’ll be able to talk her out of that perspective.

“Your yearmates troubling you for tutoring when they did not bother to pay attention to you all these years—”

“That’s not the way it was, either, sir.” Harry feels his face heat up as Snape’s eyebrows creep up a little. “ _Honest_. Smith is the only one who’s talked to me about that. Sometimes the others ask me questions, but they’re not bothering me.”

“You are modest and quiet,” Professor Snape says. “You might encounter things that would make anyone else snap and ignore them. You have the _right_ to argue back when someone bothers you. Keep that in mind.”

“Yes, sir,” Harry says, even though he thinks it’s a wasted warning. Honestly, the ones who bother him the most are Mum and Dad and Sirius and Remus, who can’t deal with their shame and guilt. They write to him all the time, but while Mum and Dad want to know how he is and what he’s doing, Remus just dwells on trying to understand why Harry kept his skills from them for years, and Sirius wavers between apologizing and trying to explain his “perspective.”

Harry surprises himself with how much he doesn’t want to _hear_ it. Or read it. Whatever.

“Now.” Professor Snape relaxes, and Harry thinks they’re going to move towards the cauldron standing ready in the corner. He’s ready for that, anticipating it, even, but Snape surprises him. “I would very much like to hear what marks you got on your OWLS.”

“Well, you know about the Outstanding in Potions, sir. Which was mostly a result of your tutoring.”

“And _your_ skill. Do not neglect your skill.”

Harry knows his mouth is open. But he can’t understand. Snape is the last person to refuse a compliment. Harry tries to give him one, and he decides it’s the student skill instead? Is he _sick_? Delusional?

“I—all right, sir. What other marks do you want to know?”

“All of them.”

That makes Harry want to keep on gaping, but he’s already spent enough time looking stupid with his mouth open. He swallows. “All right, sir. I got Outstanding marks in Defense, too, but that was mostly because I could demonstrate spells like the Shield Charm that they don’t think everyone can do. I got Acceptable in History of Magic and Exceeds Expectations in Astronomy—”

“Yes, I expected you to do at least that well, and History of Magic does not matter since you have dropped it. What about Arithmancy and Ancient Runes?”

Harry grimaces a little. “Runes was difficult. I ended up with an Acceptable because I can draw the runes just fine and read them, but I can’t get them to glow with my magic. I’m not good at feeding it into objects, sir.”

“You cannot be equally good at everything, Mr. Potter. Arithmancy?”

“Exceeds Expectations,” Harry says, just a little smugly. Arithmancy is one of those subjects that some people expect to be good at because they’re powerful. They think they can turn the equations into incantations with enough power. It takes _concentration,_ as Harry would explain if they bothered listening to him. And he can solve the equations and construct them, which matters more to Arithmancy than it does in Runes. “Acceptable in Herbology. Exceeds Expectations in everything else.”

“In Transfiguration as well?” Snape’s lips are curling up a little. “I imagine that your parents were not pleased by that.”

“They were _pleased_ ,” Harry says, a little startled Snape would think they wouldn’t be. Then again, Snape’s hatred for his father isn’t always practical. “They were just—surprised. I think they thought NEWT-level Transfiguration was beyond my skill level.”

Snape stares at him. “But they’ve seen you demonstrate it.”

“Yes, sir, but my Transfigurations usually last an hour less than everyone else’s.” Harry has accepted that. Nothing seems to change when he puts more time into it, and he would rather learn other things. And his Transfigurations do exactly what he needs them to do, including protecting him during the mock battle in his Defense OWL exam.

Snape makes a low, guttural noise. Harry blinks. It’s not possible for a human being to snarl, except for Remus when he’s in werewolf form, but it really sounds as if Snape just did that.

“Sir?” he asks cautiously. Maybe Snape got bitten by a werewolf over the summer and Harry didn’t know—although he likes to think Snape would tell him.

“They know you now, they know how much time you put into study and work, and _even now_ they do not know how to value you.” Snape’s body is still, but it’s the kind of taut stillness that could explode into violence at any second. Harry knows that kind of stillness from seeing Sirius and Dad playing with Remus. “Why are they so _worthless_?”

His voice rises into a cry, and he turns and grabs an inkwell, hurling it at the wall. Luckily, it’s made of some kind of green stone and just rolls on the floor in a spreading puddle of ink instead of exploding.

Harry hesitates and then steps forwards. He’s not sure it would be a good idea to touch Snape right now, but he puts his hand down on the desk not far from where the inkwell was. “You always thought my father was worthless, sir.”

“I tried to think otherwise. For Lily’s sake.” Snape is breathing fast, spots of color standing out on his cheeks. “And then _Lily._ The brilliant woman I knew never would have become this kind of mother. Never. What _happened_?”

“Well, she had some kind of confrontation with Aunt Petunia when I was little that really had an effect on her,” Harry says cautiously. He’s not sure how much he should reveal in case Mum wants him to keep this private. But right now, pleasing her is less important than soothing Professor Snape, the only adult who cares about Harry this much. “And people taunted her for having a Squib son and bringing Mudblood, um, blood, into the Potter family. I don’t think that she realizes how much she hurt me, even, sir.”

“That is no excuse.” Professor Snape lifts his head, slowly, squinting at Harry as though he’s trying to see him through water. “I think I am finally over regretting the loss of my friendship with Lily Evans.”

His hand finds Harry’s. Harry catches his breath sharply. Professor Snape lifts his head higher, and his eyes pierce Harry’s.

In the end, Harry is the one who has to glance away, cheeks warm. For the first time in years, he’s afraid of what Professor Snape might read in his eyes.

 

_Ravenclaw Help_

“I can help you set this up. I think you’re right, Squibs deserve a chance.”

The Potter _smiles_ at Hermione Granger when she says those ridiculous words, and Severus burns to assign her detention. But Granger is truly the one student who has never done anything to deserve it, and he cannot. Besides, her presence makes Harry talk more about the Squib advocacy movement that he wants to set up and wave his arms around while his eyes flash, and Severus enjoys watching that too much to chase the Ravenclaw girl off.

They are meeting in a small corner of the dungeons that has chairs, tables, and even the remains of a potions work station, but which no one, not even Severus’s Slytherins, knows is there. He has maintained it for years as a private place to go, less guarded than his quarters, but he showed it to Harry two years ago. Harry wanted to invite Granger there, and well.

Severus is glad that he does not mark the NEWTS. He would be unable to keep his favoritism from showing itself.

“Should it be Hogwarts, though? Or another school?” Granger taps her quill thoughtfully against the parchment in front of her, spread out on a table. “Hogwarts has a formidable reputation. And it’s full of prejudiced people.” Granger scowls. Severus recalls her effort years before to get people to stop binding house-elves, an effort doomed to failure given the amount of pure-bloods in Hogwarts.

 _Imagine such a smart girl not knowing that,_ Severus thinks snidely, but at least Granger did go along with reality in the end.

“If we want to find another school, then we have to worry about building and funding it.” Harry tilts his head. “Unless…”

Severus likes to enjoy the speed with which Harry’s brain is working, but Granger interrupts, too impatient to enjoy. “Unless what?”

“There are still lots of abandoned buildings left from the war with Voldemort.” Harry ignores the way Severus flinches. He’s never made fun of him for it, and Severus sometimes wonders who he grew up around that would be likely to flinch at the name. Of course, given Pettigrew’s rant the summer before last, perhaps it was him. “Places that no one wants to live in because people died there, but they don’t want to sell them, either. Perhaps someone would donate one to us once they hear about the cause.”

Granger blinks and then squeals and hugs Harry. “You’re brilliant, Harry!”

 _He is. And you should let go of him._ Severus holds himself in check and says only, “A good idea, Mr. Potter. Although that same prejudice Granger points out that would keep Squibs from attending Hogwarts might prevent some pure-bloods from selling you their manors.”

Harry glances at him. “I was thinking of asking Muggleborn or half-blood families, sir. Not that stuck-up lot.”

Granger giggles abruptly and claps her hand over her mouth. “Just trying to imagine you asking Malfoy,” she chokes when Harry glances at her.

Harry’s smile softens, but it still isn’t the brilliant one that he so often gives Severus now, so Severus is content. He continues, his eyes flaring. “Well, we won’t ask him. And we do have a source of funding, although probably I’ll have to work for a few years before we have enough to renovate a building and start the school.”

“ _You’ll_ have to work? What do you mean, Harry?”

What makes Severus burn now is the ease with which Granger addresses Harry by his first name. But he listens.

“Why, those lessons that people like Smith keep asking me for?” Harry’s smile flashes now, still not the brilliant one but narrow and dangerous. “I’m going to give them, sure. But I’m going to _charge_ the bastards.”

He pauses for a second and glances at Severus, then adds, “My parents are wealthy enough they might be able to pay for the school before I could. But I’d rather die than ask them.”

Severus knows he is lost. The only thing he needs to do now is decide the right thing to do about it.

_Funding_

“Can I help you, Sirius?”

“Yeah, Harry. Don’t be so formal, all right?”

Harry raises his eyebrow. Honestly, he doesn’t think this is formal, but if Sirius thinks so, then Harry will give him what he wants. “All right. I’m late for one of those lessons I’m supposed to be giving some of the Ravenclaws.” He dodges around Sirius and towards the dungeons.

“Wait, Harry! I came to Hogwarts _just_ to talk to you!”

Harry turns around and leans against the wall. Sirius looks awkward and stuffs his hands in his pockets. Harry sighs internally. He knows that Sirius wants to make up for ignoring him for so long, but on the other hand, he also doesn’t want to just apologize. He keeps trying to excuse it and telling Harry that he should be more like Sol, and then saying that Harry should have told everyone about his powers sooner.

It’s exactly the kind of tiresome response that Harry thinks should cease soon, or he’ll simply use the Silencing Charm on his family and ignore their letters.

“I thought of something I could do to make up for not acting like a good godfather.”

“All right.” Harry crosses his arms. “What’s that?”

“Don’t look like that, Harry. You look like you’re trying to shut me out—it’s just—” Sirius takes a huge gulp of air and smoothes his hand through his hair. “I don’t _like_ it when you look like that,” he whines.

“You haven’t been a very good godfather to me, Sirius. We don’t have a close relationship. I’m not angry,” Harry adds when Sirius opens his mouth, probably to accuse them of exactly that. “But I’m not interested in listening to you complain about me again. What’s your way to atone?”

Sirius looks at the floor, then back up. “Sol mentioned that you want to start a school for Squibs.”

Harry manages to suppress the roll his eyes want to give, but it’s hard. Sol is an incredibly chatter-prone person, even when he’s in the midst of his OWLS year and shouldn’t have time to be. “Yes, I do.”

“Then—I can give you some of the Black money for the building you want to purchase. Help you hire people to renovate it. You know.”

Harry considers Sirius for a second, then nods slowly. “Yes, all right. That would help.”

“Thanks, Harry!” Sirius darts forwards and hugs him.

Harry accepts the hug and _does_ roll his eyes over Sirius’s shoulder. The man is never going to have a normal relationship with him, but evidently he thinks that he can make up for that and everything will be the same as it was before.

Or rather, the way it should have been.

But it’s never going to be that way, and Harry can accept that. He has good relationships with his siblings. He has the school. He has a few casual friends in his House and others now that he’s teaching those lessons.

He has Severus.

_Even if I wouldn’t dare tell Professor Snape that I think of him that way yet.  
_


	8. Chapter 8

_Silver Serpent_

The huge gift arrives on Harry’s seventeenth birthday, with a coal-black owl that Harry hasn’t seen before. Asphodel hoots sleepily from the windowsill. She was out all night flying with Hermione’s gift; Hermione asked to borrow her since she has no owl of her own. And then Harry was up late with the book on fundraising that Hermione sent him.

Harry sits up and examines the package in surprise. There’s no note on the outside, and the paper is reflective silver that’s neutral in color and anyone might have bought. Harry finally rips it open, wondering if this is from Sirius, another attempt to buy Harry’s affection. (He can’t help thinking of it that way even if Sirius does sincerely want to make up for the horrible mistakes he’s made).

But the gift that tumbles out of the package to the bed is definitely _not_ one that Sirius would send him. Harry finds his mouth hanging open a little, and closes it with a hasty swallow.

It’s a gleaming serpent, made of silver, with tiny eyes that Harry highly suspects are emeralds instead of the beryls that they look like they are on first glance. It coils around in loose spirals, with the tail forming a last loop. Harry studies it for a second. He wonders if it’s meant to curl around his shoulders or climb up the front of a robe before he figures it out. He can wrap it around his arm, and the head of the snake will rest on his shoulder and the final tail-loop will curl around his wrist.

It’s—

He thinks he knows. He never read about this _specifically_ , but it’s very similar to the information that he got from some books in the library.

Harry licks suddenly dry lips and reaches for the note that he knows should be there. And yes, it is. It fell out of the package when he removed the serpent. He only hopes it’s from the person he wants it to be from.

It is.

_Happy birthday, Harry._

_I told myself I would not do this, that I would hold off until you were out of school and no longer a student under my marking, but I find that I cannot. There is too much possibility that someone else would approach you, win you, and perhaps even convince you to marry before you are out of Hogwarts, given how many of our kind marry young. I will not touch you until the end of your seventh year, but I cannot resist staking a claim now._

_My mother’s family, the Princes, used this serpent as a means to mark betrothal. It will remain out of sight under a shirt sleeve and is adjustable. You may wear it as openly as you want, or as quietly as you wish. The serpent is enchanted to heat up a similar ornament I wear if you are in a dangerous situation._

_Do not ask me yet to write words that I would rather speak. But I value you. I wish to wed you. I admire your intellect. I treasure your smile. I find I cannot bear the thought of you with someone else. I wish to claim you as my betrothed._

_Severus Snape._

Harry’s hand is trembling as he reaches out again to stroke the serpent. It turns its head slowly towards him, emerald eyes flaring open for a second. Then it loops forwards and waits expectantly in front of his hands.

Harry takes a deep breath, and chooses his left arm. People look more often at his right hand when he’s teaching them, since that’s his wand hand, and for right now—for right now, he wants to treasure this as a wonderful secret.

Someone _values_ him.

Harry closes his eyes against the burn that shouldn’t be there, and lets the serpent climb up to wreathe its head and neck around his shoulder. The cool weight turns subtly warm against his skin, which Harry hopes is the magic’s way of letting Professor Snape know what he’s chosen.

Because someone should.

Even though there was never any real doubt that he’d say yes.

 

_Dangerous Situations_

“Why _won’t_ you go to Hogsmeade with me, Harry?”

That is Justin Finch-Fletchley. Severus knows every tempo of a whining student’s voice by now, when he’s had them running around his school for seven years. He pauses to calm his breathing and his temper both before he looks around the corner.

Harry is standing with his arms crossed loosely over his stomach in front of the staircase that goes down to the Hufflepuff common room. Finch-Fletchley leans across him, one hand on the wall, as if he wants to pin Harry but knows how unwise that would be. His eyes are wide and hungry and fixed on Harry’s mouth.

Harry flicks an eye towards the corner where Severus stands, and the ghost of a smile crosses his lips. Finch-Fletchley seems to think it’s for _him_ , the intolerable swine. He moves towards Harry and lifts a hand as if he’s going to caress his face.

Harry cants his head back and says only, “Because I don’t want to.”

“I don’t understand, though. There’s not anyone else! I asked everyone I knew, and they said that you either don’t date or that you’d refused a date from them, too.”

“But that doesn’t mean there’s not someone else.”

Finch-Fletchley starts. “Do you mean—you’re dating a Squib, Harry? Or a Muggle?”

“I’m dating someone who prefers not to be exposed to the judgment of the wizarding world.” Harry’s voice drops, and Severus feels a shiver unfold in his stomach. “I can _hear_ the judgment in your voice just saying those words, Justin, and you’re Muggleborn. What the hell would you do if it _was_ a Squib?”

 _He does not say I am. No one would ever look to hear him lying._ Severus sighs. The end of Harry’s seventh year cannot come soon enough, no matter how much time they get to spend together as he helps Harry revise for his NEWTS.

“I didn’t mean—I’m sorry, Harry. But God, you’re brilliant and handsome and powerful—”

“No, I’m not.”

“You _are_! Everyone can see how brilliant you are now—”

“That doesn’t mean I’m powerful, Justin. You’ve also attended my lessons and you know what I say about power. Does it all leave your head the minute you walk out the classroom door?”

Finch-Fletchley is silent in what seems like consternation. Severus stretches his lips in a sneer. Harry was right when he told Severus in the letter thanking him for his betrothal gift that he values Severus because Severus is one of the few people who _sees_ him. Others looked past Harry when they thought he was a Squib, and now they think of him as powerful instead of what he really is because power is so linked with intellect in their minds.

“I’m sorry, Harry.”

“Apology accepted. But that automatic blindness is one of the reasons I don’t want to date you, Justin. Can you move out of the way now? I want to go downstairs and think about that mock exam we have in Charms tomorrow.”

 

Finch-Fletchley makes a confused, apologetic noise, and moves out of the way. Severus Disillusions himself to follow Harry down the stairs, which also gives him a good opportunity to see the look of longing Finch-Fletchley still follows Harry with.

Harry waits for Severus around the corner of the first wall at the bottom of the staircase. His smile is gentle as he reaches up and smoothes his fingers down the skin under Severus’s eyes as he becomes visible again. “That wasn’t a dangerous situation, you know.”

Severus removes the charm that keeps people from noticing the small, snake-shaped cuff around his wrist most of the time. It’s made of hammered silver to match Harry’s serpent and has diamonds for eyes. “This heats up whenever _I_ think you are in danger.”

Harry rolls his eyes. “Danger as defined by Severus Snape.”

“Exactly,” Severus breathes. His hunger is increasing the longer he stands near Harry, and he no longer knows whether it’s Harry’s brilliant green eyes that inspire it or the cool disdain he uses to shoot down people like Finch-Fletchley, whether it’s the slender body that Harry keeps toned with dueling or the unapologetic pride with which he walks through Hogwarts’s corridors.

Harry gives him a regretful smile and steps back. “I really do need to get back to the common room, sir.”

Severus restrains himself from reaching out and only nods, hiding his cuff again. Harry’s smile turns wistful, and he reaches out to caress it once before he turns and makes his way down the corridor.

Severus watches the slight ridge of bumps that the silver serpent makes under Harry’s sleeve, and tells himself that it is only seven months from now that he will be able to claim the man who’s chosen to be his. And that Harry needs the time to study. Severus is determined to see Harry score all Outstanding marks on his NEWTS, as much as Harry tells him it’s impossible.

 

_Finding Out_

“Harry, that’s beautiful. What is it?”

Harry glances down. Alicia sometimes comes to meetings between him, Severus, and Hermione when they’re discussing the Squib school and the ways they’re going to fund it. Harry has found a few buildings that he thinks would suit, one of them a huge house that a half-blood family bought from a pure-blood family just before most of them got slaughtered by Voldemort, and the other a hall that the Flint family has been planning to renovate for generations and never got around to. It takes his mind a minute to come back from the discussion to what Alicia is pointing at.

The tail of the silver serpent has slipped out of his sleeve and is visible where it grips his wrist.

Severus’s tension is visible from the other side of the room. Harry is careful not to look at him as he smiles at Alicia. “That’s a gift I got on my birthday.” He pulls up his sleeve, content in the knowledge that neither Alicia nor Hermione will recognize that it’s a betrothal gift from Severus’s mother’s family, even though they might recognize it as a betrothal gift in general. “See?”

Alicia gasps when he reveals the head of the serpent, and Hermione leans over to look, but doesn’t touch. Harry isn’t sure if anything bad would happen if someone touches the serpent besides himself; he just knows he doesn’t want it to happen at all.

“It’s incredible,” Hermione whispers. “And I can feel that there are enchantments on it, but I don’t know which ones.”

“Protective enchantments,” Harry says blandly as he lets his sleeve fall back into place. It’s true, after all. “My betrothed didn’t want me in dangerous situations. The serpent is charmed to let him know about it.”

“ _Him_?” Hermione goggles at him.

“There are plenty of wizards who date other wizards,” Alicia says impatiently. “Plenty of them in our House, even, Hermione. Oh, Harry.” She’s looking up at him with eyes full of delight. “I can’t believe that you got betrothed the first out of all of us. I mean, I know you’re oldest, but Sol is fussing and fussing about just asking Ginny Weasley out! A betrothal is a big deal.”

Hermione nods. “And most people don’t get married until a lot later in the Muggle world. Are you sure that you want to marry this person, Harry?”

Harry turns his head a little, enough that he can watch Severus’s expression from the corner of his eye. “I’ve never been surer of anything,” he says.

He doesn’t miss the relaxation in Severus’s face, although of course he won’t actually smile. Not yet.

Harry can wait for that.

*

“ _Alicia_ ,” Harry hisses as he finds his little sister just entering the Great Hall for breakfast. He drags her into a corner of the entrance hall where most people won’t see them and casts a privacy charm, then glares at her. “Why did you tell Mum and Dad that I’m betrothed?”

“They deserve to know that someone values you.”

Harry continues glaring at Alicia, but she just meets it with a scowl of her own, and he finally rolls his eyes and gives in. There’s absolutely no way he’s going to convince his stubborn Ravenclaw of a sister, that much is true. “Now they’re sending me letters hounding me to know who it is and what it is.” At least Alicia apparently didn’t describe to them what Harry’s betrothal gift looked like, just that there is one.

“I didn’t tell them that it’s a man courting you, or that it’s a snake, or anything else,” Alicia confirms. “But they deserve to know that someone is going to marry you.”

Harry is quiet for a moment then. He doesn’t know if Alicia realizes this, but he had—there were a few years when he just sort of assumed that he’d never marry, when he thought about it, which wasn’t often. A lot of Squibs _don’t_ get married. Or they marry Muggles and have children who sometimes are aware of the wizarding world and sometimes aren’t. Pure-bloods shrink from Squibs, so do half-bloods raised in the wizarding world, and even Muggleborns become concerned about what would happen if they had to hide magic from their spouses and children. Or they grow concerned their spouses would be jealous.

Harry wouldn’t be surprised at all if his parents and his godfather maintained some of the same attitude even after they knew he was on the low side of average instead of a Squib.

But someone _does_ want to marry him. Someone _does_ value him. And his parents don’t know who.

Harry begins to smile.

“See?” Alicia grins back at him. “That’s the way you should look. March around with your chin in the air and know that you’re better than everyone else, because no one else here has such an expensive betrothal gift and no one else is going to be as great as you are when you found the school.” She pokes him in the shoulder, on top of one of the serpent’s coils. “You _should_ be proud, Harry! As proud as a swan!”

Harry laughs. His sister makes odd comparisons sometimes. “I don’t want a big head,” he says, wrapping an arm around her shoulder and escorting her into the Great Hall. “I can be great without that.”

“You already are,” Alicia tells him, with utter seriousness.

*

“Harry. We came all this way to speak to you. And you still won’t tell us anything?”

Severus slows at once. The snake cuff on his wrist heated up to the point where he had to leave class five minutes ago, and part of him is still thinking on the kind of chaos that third-year Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs will cause without supervision. But the last voice he expected to hear was Lily’s.

He halts inside the shadows at the top of the staircase to the dungeons. Lily and Potter are standing in the receiving hall, Potter flushed, Lily pale. She has her hand extended to Harry, who is watching her with calm, devastating politeness.

“Harry, who _is_ this person you’re betrothed to?”

“We want to keep that secret for now.”

“That means it’s shameful.” Potter has a deeper voice than Severus remembers. “Who is it, Harry? Someone who followed You-Know-Who? A Slytherin? Someone older than you are?”

Severus holds onto his laughter viciously. Potter managed to get all the “terrible” things right in one guess. From the slight waver in Harry’s voice as he replies, he is thinking the same thing. “He’s a private person.”

“Is he ashamed of marrying you because you’re almost a Squib? That’s not good.” Lily shakes her head, her red hair sliding over her shoulders. “You shouldn’t marry someone who views you as shameful, Harry.”

 _That is not the woman I knew,_ Severus thinks, but with detachment. He shouldn’t be surprised by that. Lily has been married to Potter and living around Black and Lupin for far longer than she and Severus were friends. Of course she wouldn’t be the same. His vision of the past is shattered like a mirror now, and has less power to hurt him.

“You’re the ones who spent years being ashamed of my power.” Harry’s voice now matches his face. “Stop looking into the shadows and jumping at your own fears.”

“You haven’t been very respectful to us in the last year, Harry.” Potter’s voice is firmer now. “We’re still your parents. We still deserve your respect, and we want to know who you’re marrying.”

“I’m a legal adult.” Harry’s voice is lower still. “I don’t owe you anything. And you spent years pitying me and worrying about what people would think of you for having a child with lower than average power. I don’t _care_ what you feel right now. I don’t care about inviting you to my wedding. I don’t care about telling you my secrets. You were the parents you should have been to Sol, and Romulus, and Alicia. They love you. That’s the only reason I haven’t told you _exactly_ what I think of you before now.”

“H-Harry.” Lily is the one who moves away from Potter, who just looks like he doesn’t know if he should weep or explode. “What do you think of us?”

Harry draws himself up. Severus moves a little to the side so he can see Harry’s face. This is the moment that the moment when Harry revealed his power should have been, he thinks. Lily and Potter weren’t nearly shocked enough then. They will be shocked now.

“I think that you’re far shallower than you want the world to believe.” Harry’s voice is smooth, and still cool and polite. Severus thinks on how often he has seen Harry lose his temper, and realizes it’s almost never. Maybe he learned it didn’t work when he was a child. “You care too much about the good opinions of people whose good opinions aren’t worth having, like the Malfoys and the rest of the Blacks besides Sirius. You care about how _you_ look for having a Squib child. You wanted to predict how I would behave, and you were so sure that I would be jealous of Sol and Romulus and Alicia that you never _looked_ at me. You just wanted to be normal. Normal for pure-blood wizards, anyway.”

He shifts his gaze to Potter. “You wanted sons like you. Gryffindors and hot-tempered and powerful at magic and pranksters. Sometimes I wonder how you deal with Romulus. I suppose Alicia’s different because she’s a girl.” He shrugs. “The minute you realized that I wasn’t going to be like you, even though it was based on a lie, you gave up on me.

“And _you_ let your personal experiences influence you too much, Mother.” Harry faces Lily, and their identical eyes meet, and Lily’s are the ones that waver and drop. “You were so sure that I was going to be your sister all over again. That made Sol and Romulus and Alicia the victims, and you decided you had to be the heroic one who saved them.

“Did you ever think that even if I had been jealous of them, it wouldn’t have been the end of the world? What one child feels about another never is. But you spent more time talking about my possible jealousy than I ever did feeling it, and magnified it to the point that Sol thought the worst insult in the world was calling me a Squib.”

Silence echoes around this part of the receiving hall when Harry finishes. Some students on their way to lunch—by now classes have ended—pause to watch. Severus sees Granger among her fellow Ravenclaws, sees her narrowed, angry gaze fixed on Lily and Potter.

“I would still have been alive if I was a Squib,” Harry adds. “I would still have had feelings. But you spent all your time fretting about what I _might_ feel, what I _might_ be. I have someone who loves and values me. I don’t need you or the shadows of you.

“That’s what I feel,” Harry ends, with an impatient little toss of his head that Severus adores. Then he turns and follows the crowd to lunch.

Severus lingers long enough to feel the heat die out of the snake cuff around his wrist and see Lily turn to bury her face in Potter’s shoulder. Then he goes back to his classroom, wondering if Harry was right to accuse him of overprotectiveness, and that most of the “dangerous” situations his own snake might warn him of are ones Harry can handle with ease.

Of course, dangerous situations still exist for other people. Like the students in his third-year Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw class once he sees the mess they’ve made.

_Brilliance_

“This really is going to work.”

Harry turns around to smile at Severus. They’re in the building that Harry finally decided to purchase to build the school, the house that the half-blood family used to own before Voldemort killed so many of their relatives in it. As Harry thought, they were willing to sell it for a pittance compared to what the house is worth.

They’re in what looks like a cross between an entrance hall and a sitting room, given the huge fireplace on the wall. There’s still a pattern of violently golden paper on the walls, but Harry is watching the high, arched windows and the skylight, thinking of how it’ll look when it’s made over into stained glass symbols of learning.

He isn’t going to have Houses in this school. They don’t need the divisions.

“A magnificent place,” Severus concedes, folding his arms. Like Harry, he can’t fold them comfortably all the way across his chest, but his cuff is a smaller obstacle than the serpent bound about Harry’s arm is. Harry smiles at him as he watches a beam of grey light from the windows trace over his cheekbones. “You—meant what you said.”

“I say a lot of things. I mean most of them. Tell me which one this is, Severus.”

His voice dips lower without his permission. Severus glances at him, eyes full of heat, but inclines his head. “You meant it when you said that I would be welcome as a teacher in this school.”

“Administration staff,” Harry corrects him. “I know that you can teach well when you want to, but there are few kids you’d be patient enough with.”

“That much is true. Do you know why I became Potions master at Hogwarts in the first place?”

“No.” Harry leans comfortably against a wall where he can look through one of the arched doorways that leads out from this room. “Tell me.”

“I had a flirtation with the Death Eaters. There were few people who would hire me. Albus Dumbledore was kind enough to offer me a post.”

Harry jolts and looks up at him. “And now—you must realize _that’s_ not true anymore. That you could have made your own place and your own career even when the war was more recent in everybody’s minds.”

Severus glances away, eyes flitting over the hearth, the skylight, and down yet another corridor beyond an arched doorway. “I—did not allow myself to think about it. Much like your parents, I did not allow myself to see the wider situation. And at the time, I was young and too afraid to think I could establish myself on my own.”

“Don’t compare yourself to my parents. You’re nothing like _them_.”

“There are ways in which I am.” Severus shakes his head when Harry tries to speak. “No, let me say this.”

Harry subsides enough to nod.

“There were students before you who had potential, I’m certain. But I ignored them, or mistreated them. I never should have become a teacher. It is not where my talents lie. Well, perhaps some students especially skilled with Potions might have appreciated me. I convinced myself that this was fine, because I had to make a living, and I also convinced myself that I was helping you only to get my revenge on your father.”

Harry nods. “Yes, all right. But you did wake up, and I know that you haven’t been as foul to anyone in the last few years as you were before me. So come away from Hogwarts and help me run my school. I know that you can be diplomatic when you deal with idiots. And you’ll enjoy proving idiots wrong about Squibs and inventing potions that non-magical students can brew.”

Severus takes a step forwards and lets his hand hover in the air for a moment before pulling back. He takes his prohibition against touching Harry while he’s still a student seriously (even when Harry wishes he wouldn’t). He coughs and says, “I can do that. I will be—with you, even if I have to work on my administrative skills. And that is worth a great deal to me.”

Harry lets his face relax into a smile. “You never asked what I was going to call the school, you know.”

“I did not,” Severus admits. “I assumed you hadn’t decided on a name.” He pauses, his gaze holding Harry’s. “What _will_ you call it?”

Harry glances upwards again at all the light washing the corridors. “Brilliance.”

 

_Wedding_

“Well, this is certainly a surprise, Severus.”

Severus shrugs and pushes the resignation letter a little closer to Albus. “It’s probably something I should have done years ago. I am temperamentally unsuited to being a teacher.”

“Hmm.” Albus looks at Severus instead of touching the letter. Severus only calmly looks back. He has Occlumency skill strong enough that nothing Albus tries can get through it. Albus relaxes after a moment and smiles. “You are making the right decision for you, my boy. At least, I hope so.”

Severus lets the condescending reference pass. He won’t have to listen to it much longer. “Yes, I am,” he says. “Thank you for giving me the chance that led me to my new life.”

“Now I am more curious than ever,” Albus says with a light chuckle, but doesn’t try to press. Instead, he waves Severus ahead of him, and Severus leaves the Headmaster’s Tower with a light heart.

This is the night of the Leaving Feast for the seventh-years. The NEWT exams are finished, and Severus knows that Harry will have achieved all Outstanding’s (or he will know why not). Harry will spend one more night in the Hufflepuff dorms with his yearmates, who he remains politely distant from.

And then tomorrow, at dawn, they will be wed.

*

Harry feels the silver serpent on his arm shift as he finishes dressing in the shimmering golden wedding robes. He reaches up and smoothes the head on his shoulder. It calms down and relaxes a moment later.

Harry smiles. He knows that Severus will be placing a cuff of his own around Harry’s wrist in a few minutes, but he hopes that Severus doesn’t intend to take the betrothal gift back. Harry has grown used to the reassuring weight on his arm.

He adjusts the robes one more time, and then steps out of the small silken tent Severus set up here two days ago. It’s dawn, the soft red and gold colors streaking along the horizon, and the gardens of Brilliance House rustle with equally soft green around him. Sunrise weddings are unusual, but it was a tradition in Severus’s mother’s family and one Harry is eager to adopt.

There are so few Potter traditions that he wants to keep, after all.

As he walks across the gardens, Sol, Romulus, Alicia, and Hermione fall in behind him. Alicia is as calm as always, wearing her own red dress robes, carrying a bouquet of flowers, and smiling at him. Hermione has stopped shooting dark scowls at Severus and now wears a neutral expression. Romulus is smiling, too, although from the faraway look in his eyes, he’s probably daydreaming about magical theory. Sol still looks as stunned as he did when Harry told him, last week, who he was marrying.

But none of them have blabbed to Mother or Father or Sirius or Remus. That’s good. Harry doesn’t need them here, doesn’t want them.

Severus is almost alone, but in the end, he did invite two people: Sirius’s brother, Regulus, who used to be his friend at Hogwarts and who apparently is a Potions brewer of some renown outside Britain, and Minerva McGonagall. Harry barely knew they were friends. Professor McGonagall gives Harry a stiff smile and moves around in front of Severus. She has some kind of official Ministry dispensation that allows her to marry people.

“We are gathered here today to celebrate the joining of Severus Snape and Harry Potter,” Professor McGonagall says. She gives Harry a smile that has less strain in it this time. “You are accepting the proposal made to you last July in good faith, Mr. Potter?”

“I do,” Harry says. He hears Sol mutter something behind him, but he can’t hear it, which means that he doesn’t need to listen. All of his attention is fixed on Severus, who holds out his hands. Harry clasps them. Severus shifts Harry’s left hand a little so that the tail of the serpent around his wrist touches the cuff Severus wears.

A soft silver glow promptly encases them. Regulus Black blinks. Harry is sure Hermione is standing on her toes to look, and probably storing the information in her mind to look up later.

“You intend to honor that proposal you made, Mr. Snape?” Professor McGonagall continues. Her voice sounds calm and confident now.

“I do.” Harry holds Severus’s eyes and watches the heat and the hesitancy in them. This is a new thing for both of them. But Harry is as confident as Professor McGonagall sounds right now. They _are_ going to do this.

“You promise to love each other?” Professor McGonagall prompts, and adds, “From now on, all your responses should be spoken in unison.”

“I do.”

“You promise to treasure each other?”

“I do.”

“You promise to defend each other from all threats, to stand together without doubt or denial, to present a united front to the world?”

“I do.”

“You promise to bind your fates and your futures together, until the moment of death comes, and continue in hope that not even death may put them asunder?”

“I do.”

Harry watches as the silver glow rises higher, and higher, shifting around them, and then melts into their skin. Severus hasn’t reached for the cuff that he said he was going to wrap around Harry’s wrist, and Harry wonders why until he realizes that the light itself is forming the cuff. The one on Severus’s left wrist grows visibly thicker, while the one that coalesces on Harry’s wrist is entirely made of light. Harry shivers at the slight weight and lifts his eyes to meet Severus’s again.

Severus’s face is shining with far more than the light: with possessiveness, strength, delight, and love. He reaches out and draws Harry’s left arm, still encircled by the serpent that he evidently doesn’t intend to reclaim, through his. He turns to face their audience. Regulus Black’s eyebrows look to be permanently raised, but at least he doesn’t look disapproving.

“You need to now present your new names to the world,” Professor McGonagall says from behind them.

“Severus Prince,” Severus says, a breath before Harry adds, “Harry Prince.”

“Harry, you _didn’t_ ,” Sol says, blinking so fast that Harry can’t tell if _he_ disapproves or if he’s just startled.

“I have no reason to love my name,” Severus says, as if the question was addressed to him, his head lifting high. “And Harry has no reason to love his.”

“I’m not really a Potter,” Harry tells his siblings, seeing the understanding in Alicia’s eyes and how Romulus is entirely focused on the moment. “I haven’t been since Peter lied about me. Maybe that’s not the way it should be. But I want to face reality, not comfortable lies.”

Severus tightens his grip on Harry’s arm. Harry smiles up at him and leans against him. For a moment, he visualizes how his parents and Sirius and Remus will react when they find out, then dismisses the notion.

Today is not about them. Today is about him and Severus.

*

The wedding feast was a breakfast outside in the gardens, managing to be raucous despite the presence of so few people. But now their guests have gone, and Severus and Harry are in a bedroom in what will be the administrative wing of Brilliance House, repaired and cleaned by the house-elves.

Alone.

Harry pins Severus against the door and kisses him aggressively the minute Severus shuts it behind them. Severus would like to kiss back, but honestly, all he can do is open his mouth and let Harry’s tongue do what it wants. For a virgin, a virgin Severus _knows_ has never kissed anyone else, Harry is surprisingly talented.

Then again, he is in love.

And so is Severus. Even if today was the first time he managed to admit it.

Eventually, they do undress. Eventually, they do move to the large bed that some house-elf has covered with far too many frills and flounces. Harry squirms into the middle of it, his eyes brilliant and wide and his legs already open. He closes his eyes, squinting, and then smiles. At the same time, Severus sees a gleam form around his hole.

“Harry,” he says, breathless, unable to keep his eyes from the entrance to Harry’s body even as he finishes removing his socks. “Did you just—you never mentioned that you had learned wandless magic.”

“It’s just the one spell. And I didn’t mention it because it was embarrassing how many times I’d practiced it.”

“I love you,” Severus says, hardly noticing the words falling from his lips as he climbs onto the bed and bends over Harry.

“I love you, too,” Harry says, opening his legs further, until he winces and has to close them a little. “Now, come on, I’ve been dreaming about you fucking me for _months_. Make it better than the dreams.”

Severus does. Or at least he tries. The warmth surrounding him, holding him, when he slides within Harry makes him unable to be as slow and gentle as he always pictured. Then again, Harry is baring his teeth at him and challenging him to go faster, and there is always later.

Always until their futures and fates may be parted, and perhaps beyond that.

Severus plunges into Harry as hard as he can, and Harry wraps his legs around Severus and fucks himself backwards with as much determination as any young virgin eager to abandon that state. Severus tries to touch Harry’s cock, but honestly, he’s doing all he can to make sure that they don’t fall off the bed. It’s incredible, and draining, and Harry still somehow manages to come between them with a shout of pleasure.

Severus can finally release the hold he has on himself, and fall.

*

Harry opens his eyes later—it must be hours later—to find evening light coming in through the windows. He yawns in a leisurely way and turns his head.

A whole row of owls are lined up outside the window nearest the bed. They start pecking on the glass when they see Harry’s open eyes.

But Brilliance House is warded. Harry specifically wound in spells that would allow owls to arrive but not deliver their letters if Harry didn’t want to read them right then. They can either drop them in place for Harry to collect when he wants to—and see them be destroyed utterly if they’re Howlers—or they can bloody well wait.

It took even longer to learn that spell than it did to learn the Shield Charm, but it has its merits.

Severus is still asleep beside him. Harry traces the lines of his face, around his mouth, around his eyes, and around his jawline, before he settles against him and closes his eyes again.

Secure in a way he’s never been, Harry Prince falls asleep next to his husband for the second time.

**The End.**


End file.
